Cast in Wisdom

by Michelle Sagara

  A function of the way you communicate when you are, as you so quaintly put it, on the inside of your own head. It is what Lord Ynpharion finds so deplorable. This, on the other hand, amused Nightshade. It is lunch now. I am heading toward the dining hall. But your thinking in regard to Killian and Candallar seems sound to me. Judging from the Arkon’s expression, he is unable to find immediate flaw with it himself.

  She felt his pang of regret as he mentioned the Arkon—but that, he had always felt. It occurred to her only now that she felt it because the regret was deep, genuine and impossible to entirely squelch.

  “Do you think that Candallar set his Tower to search for Killian?”

  “Yes,” the Arkon said, the syllable almost Draconic in tone and texture.

  “And the Tower did.”

  “Yes. I believe you are correct about the timing of the Candallar breach, and it would explain much.”

  “How did Candallar know?”

  “If you will be silent for a few moments, I might be able to think without interruption.” His eyes had grown orange, and that orange deepened. This made it pretty easy to shut up.

  He closed his eyes; the orange shuttered for a moment. Kaylin could feel Nightshade leaning in, the whole of his attention upon the Arkon, as if he were present in this hall, this enclosed space.

  “Karriamis,” the Arkon finally said.

  Bellusdeo frowned.

  “Karriamis is the ancient name of the Tower that is now called Candallar.”

  Kaylin said, “Karriamis was a Dragon.”

  “Yes. Before he became the heart of, the mind of, one of the six, he was a Dragon.”

  She thought of the Ancestors of the Barrani; she wondered if Dragon ancestors were as terrifying. She didn’t ask. Instead, she said, “You think he knew Aramechtis.”

  “Yes. I was young,” the Arkon said. “I was young enough that even my memory is stubborn and hard to retrieve. I have not thought of Aramechtis for centuries. I have not thought of Karriamis for far, far longer. It is possible, then, that Karriamis knew—or hoped—that the Academia had been preserved in some fashion.

  “You have seen the Tower of Tiamaris. You have spoken with its Avatar. Tara is what remains of the heart of that Tower. Karriamis is no longer a Dragon; I do not believe he could be retrieved and returned to us now. The changes the Ancients made were not easily unmade by any. Nor were those chosen to become our strongest defense against Ravellon all of one people or another. But it is possible that the Tower of Nightshade had little regard for the Academia, and little regard for its purpose.

  “The same might be said of the inhabitants of the other Towers, those beings who became their core. Not all of the people who lived at the time chose to devote their time and energy toward studies such as the Academia produced. I would need to see the historical records of the student body to fully ascertain what I now suspect.”

  “That Karriamis was a student here?”

  “Long before I was, yes. What does that expression mean?”

  “I’m wondering if you know where those records would be kept.”

  “Yes. You’ve been there. They were, at one time, in the building in which you found Larrantin.”

  * * *

  Since getting out of this long stone hall didn’t seem to be an option, checking bureaucratic student records was out of the question. Kaylin, therefore, returned her attention to the word that had risen from her skin.

  “Yes,” the Arkon said, although she hadn’t asked anything of anyone, including herself.

  “Why do you think Killian sent us here?”

  “Safety.”

  “Ours or his?”

  “Both. I am, however, more concerned about Killian’s safety than our own.” His glance slid over Bellusdeo. Her smile was all teeth. “I believe he understands that he has intruders, but cannot yet differentiate between those and students.”

  “There’s a child there that went missing not long ago, and he’s in Nightshade’s class. I’m not even sure he can read.”

  “That is unkind.”

  “Why? I could barely read until I joined the Hawks, and I was older. If reading hadn’t been a necessary part of the job—reading and writing—I wouldn’t have bothered with either.”

  The Arkon looked truly scandalized, an expression unfamiliar to Kaylin.

  “Knowledge for its own sake is kind of pointless. I didn’t have the time for it because the knowledge I was developing could keep me alive for another day. Staying alive for another day isn’t something that worries you. You have a palace over your head. You have all the food you could want.”

  “Knowledge for its own sake,” the Arkon replied, in a less heated and less curt tone, “can become an unexpected route to survival. The understanding gained from so-called pointless study can illuminate the life you lead now in unexpected ways.”

  Kaylin shrugged. “I haven’t noticed that it’s getting us anywhere right now.” She turned away from the Arkon and toward the rune that she had lifted from her skin. Not the one that shed light, but the other—the one that felt weightless, as if it were air.

  “Do you know this word?” she asked the Arkon.

  “Not well enough to explain it. I recognize it, but the words that I learned did not include this one. Speech of the kind you have heard from me, or from Lord Sanabalis, is more like a summoning than a discussion. The words on your skin are present; the words that we have learned are not. Not in a fashion we recognize.

  “But there are more words on your skin,” he continued, when Kaylin didn’t interrupt, “and their meanings are not always clear to me. If I listen carefully, if I focus on nothing else, I can almost hear their echoes—but it is seldom that you and lack of interruption are present in the same space.”

  “But you can see it.”

  “Yes. As you can see the words I have spoken in your presence.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “It is not my thought in the matter that is necessary, but yours. These words were given to you to speak, to use. These words are your acts of communication with the ancient and unknown. This single rune, this single word, is one that you chose.”

  But she hadn’t. Not deliberately.

  “I believe you chose it when you were attempting to discern how to best speak with Killian—a Killian who is not quite awake.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You have questions, then. At times, answers beget more questions, but even the questions form a type of mental path that you can approach and walk. You understand sentient buildings; you have now met several, and you live in one of them, although it is my suspicion that you might live in any of them and the buildings themselves would be happy to have you.

  “I am not certain that Killian would suit either your needs or your purposes, but had you not made the first attempt to speak with him, we might not be here now. I do not know what you were thinking; I know that this word, this true word, is part answer and part question.”

  Kaylin looked at the word. She reached up to touch it; it was as solid as it appeared to be to her eyes. When she closed her palm around it, she could pull it down. She didn’t try to stuff it back onto her skin. Instead, she turned to her left, faced the featureless stone wall, and pushed the rune into—or onto—the stone itself.

  “What are you doing?” Bellusdeo’s voice was sharp.

  “Experimenting?”

  “In the current situation, that is not comforting. Honestly, I begin to see why Terrano and Mandoran like you so much.”

  To Kaylin’s shock, the Arkon said, “We are in an entirely new situation, about which we know very little. Without some experimentation, we might be trapped here in both literal and figurative ignorance.”

  “I would like Kaylin not to lose her hand or her arm.”

  “She is right-h
anded, and she is cautious enough to experiment with the hand that is not dominant.”

  Two streams of smoke filled the hall. Even had Kaylin not been occupied, stepping between two Dragons who were annoying each other never seemed like the brightest of ideas.

  The word, the rune, stuck to the rock. It flattened there slowly, as if melting, and lost dimensionality as it did. It didn’t lose its essential shape or color; it remained a glowing, gold rune on the surface of the wall, as if that stone were skin.

  “What do you see?” Kaylin asked the Arkon, her gaze fixed to that single word.

  “A word has appeared on the wall, at the height of your shoulder. It is glowing.”

  “It looks like a door ward,” Bellusdeo added, studying it. “Is that what you see?”

  Kaylin nodded. “Yes, to all of it.”

  “You hate door wards.”

  “I know. I was just thinking that myself, but with ruder words.” She grimaced and lifted her left hand. “But this one shouldn’t cause actual pain to touch, if that’s what it is.”

  “Would you like me to try it? I generally open the Imperial doors, and it cannot be as odious as the ward on the library.” This was said to Kaylin but clearly meant for the Arkon.

  Kaylin shrugged. “It’s not a door ward. It should be fine.” And if it wasn’t, the last person she wanted to touch it was Bellusdeo. The Emperor would sacrifice them all in a heartbeat if it preserved the sole female Dragon in the Empire.

  The Arkon said, “Move. Both of you.”

  Kaylin lowered her left arm.

  The Arkon raised his.

  “Is the book you’re carrying not cold?”

  The mound of the Arkon’s palm made contact with the wall, almost entirely covering the rune Kaylin had placed there. “Cold?”

  “When I carry it, it’s like I’ve brought the worst of winter with me—and I’m dressed for summer. It’s cold.”

  “It is cold, yes,” the Arkon then replied.

  “But don’t you—”

  “Cold is not one of the things that will kill a Dragon.”

  “What we cover in racial integration classes is not how to kill a Dragon. For obvious reasons.”

  “If you wish to take umbrage at—” The Arkon stopped. His hand remained against the wall, but the rune that his palm had covered had spread somehow. The major line that formed the bulk of its shape crept out, to the left and the right of that hand; the smaller dots or strokes that formed the rest spread, as well. The whole of the word, absent only the Arkon’s hand, could be seen—almost as if the wall had been built to contain it.

  No, not just the wall. The upper and lower elements of the simple word continued to spread. When they reached the corners made by floor and ceiling, they didn’t bend to encompass either that floor or ceiling. They seemed to vanish, but watching, Kaylin was certain that they were simply reaching for unseen heights—or depths.

  The line that had been the majority of the word continued its spread to the left and right, thickening as it did. She could no longer see the beginning—or the end—of the line; it seemed to be part of the wall on which it had been placed. The Arkon’s touch had enlarged it, somehow. Kaylin wasn’t certain if the Arkon had done something deliberate, but if he had, it was something inaudible and invisible to her eyes.

  When the whole of the wall for as far as she could see in either direction was now a golden, glowing gold, the wall itself began to shiver; the shiver built to a shudder. Kaylin took an involuntary step back; Hope bit her ear, and she stopped moving.

  “You know,” she told the familiar, “you could just speak.”

  His teeth hadn’t caused bleeding, but he hadn’t let go of her ear lobe, which implied he was keeping that option open. Since his mouth was occupied, he probably couldn’t speak clearly. He didn’t try.

  Bellusdeo hadn’t taken the same step back that she had, and the Arkon’s hand still rested against what had been featureless, endless stone moments before. Kaylin should have been surprised when the wall began to crumble. She could hear the sound of stone hitting stone, but could see nothing as she watched.

  “It is,” the Arkon said, his hand still raised, “a door ward. Of a kind. I advise you not to move.”

  “Can you lower your hand?”

  The question seemed to annoy him. “I advise you not to move and not to speak.”

  Bellusdeo’s chuckle was low and brief. “It does my heart good to see you thus,” she told the older Dragon. “It is so very, very nostalgic.”

  If the Arkon heard her at all, he made no reply; Kaylin suspected that he hadn’t. She could see only his face in profile, but the width of his eyes, the fact that the lower membrane was open, and the hint—it was hard to see color from this vantage—of silver implied surprise. Wonder.

  She understood that there was something the Arkon wanted from Killian and from this place. She thought, in the moment that the wall vanished, she understood what it was.

  * * *

  He held out his hand to Bellusdeo. She took it without comment. “Kaylin.”

  She waited for the rest of the words; she got a frustrated snort of smoke instead.

  “I believe he intends that you either take my hand,” Bellusdeo said, “or grab his arm or shoulder—something that you can easily reach. He is not certain that we will not be separated.”

  I concur, Nightshade said. I admit I am envious. Our lunch, such as it is, is nowhere near as fascinating or compelling as what has become of your word, Chosen.

  I’d switch places, if I could. Can you see the rest of the student body?

  They have not yet closed the hall’s doors.

  They close the doors?

  I believe it is to indicate that those who are late will have to wait for the next meal.

  Kaylin would never have been late. She looked as Nightshade looked, and felt both dismay and disgust.

  You may see Barrani miscreants at any time. You might never see what the Arkon and Bellusdeo are seeing again.

  And if I’m not looking at it, you won’t see it, either?

  Exactly.

  We’re kind of trapped in this place. So is your brother. We don’t have a lot of—She raised her free arm to cover her eyes as a flash of incandescent light reminded her of old admonitions about staring at the sun: don’t do it, or you’ll go blind.

  Blinking, she felt the Arkon move and tightened her grip on his shoulder. He didn’t run; she didn’t lose him. But she forgot about the dining hall; she needed to see what was in front of her eyes, when she could see again at all.

  * * *

  The gold-white light was slow to clear, as if the light itself had been the detritus of an active Arcane bomb, and the light that remained, the aftershock of its explosion. She felt Hope’s wing bat her face and come to rest across her eyes. Since her eyes were watering, the wing didn’t immediately reveal any new visual information.

  “Kaylin?”

  “I’m here,” she said in response to Bellusdeo. “I’m attached to the Arkon’s shoulder, and my eyes are watering. Yours?”

  The Arkon muttered something about mortal eyes, which was brief and not complimentary. It was, on the other hand, an answer.

  Kaylin had expected to be in a room—a large room, like the first of Killian’s rooms had been. This was not where she was. She was now in a dimly lit room, much of the illumination provided by the rune she had deliberately lifted off her own skin.

  The Arkon, however, spoke a terse word, which washed across her skin like moving sandpaper. The whole of the immediate view became instantly brighter and clearer. Kaylin tried not to resent it.

  “The reason we did not attempt to cast a simple light spell,” the Arkon said, although Kaylin had said nothing, “is that we could not do it.”

  “What?”

  “I did try. Bellusdeo?”


  The gold Dragon shrugged.

  “Your light was necessary; it was not a test. While I have no qualms about tests, you are not my student. I was not attempting to waste your time. I believe it is safe to let go of my shoulder.”

  Meaning let go of his shoulder right now. Kaylin was happy to do so; grabbing his shoulder reminded her a bit too much of foundlings and rope lines. She looked past the shoulder she’d just released, and the brighter light, combined with visual acclimatization, surrendered the image of a library. She released her hold on the mark and it returned to her skin.

  A large, cavernous library appeared to go on forever.

  They had entered through a wall; the wall itself was gone. When Kaylin looked back, she saw shelves. The shelves were built at least three stories tall, and there were ladders that appeared to float a few inches off the ground, as if waiting to be needed.

  The Arkon exhaled for a long time.

  “You recognize this library,” Bellusdeo said. Not a question.

  The Arkon nodded, his neck craning up, and up again. “I do.”

  It was empty of anything except books and the three people who had entered through a wall that no longer existed. “Can you see a door?” Kaylin asked.

  The Arkon said, “No. And I do not advise you to search for one.”

  “Meaning there’s no door.”

  “Not in the strictly quotidian sense, no. There were portals by which we traversed the library itself. Very, very few of us were granted permission to enter this library. There were librarians,” he added, “some precious few whose responsibility was to see to the safety of the collection. But all such gatherings are comprised of people who have their own desires, their own interests.

  “Those who had earned Killianas’s trust were allowed to remove books for personal perusal in the confines of their own offices.”

  Kaylin looked at the arm in which the Arkon was clutching Larrantin’s book. As if that were a signal, the Arkon loosened that hold, letting Bellusdeo’s hand go in order to examine the message that Larrantin had intended for Killian—a message he had not accepted the only time his Avatar had appeared before the Arkon.