Cast in Conflict

by Michelle Sagara

  Hope sighed. He could hear her clearly, and she could hear him, although the Dragons hadn’t become significantly quieter. Not yet.

  I do not believe it is wise to send Bellusdeo out of the Tower at this precise moment.

  “We don’t know what else is attacking—no, shut up.” The mark wavered, becoming momentarily transparent. She lost the thread of the thought that had allowed her to even find the damn thing, and struggled to bring it back.

  Hope snorted. This, I can do. You are a very odd master. I am not displeased with you, but cannot decide if you are kind or cowardly.

  She knew the moment he began to transform. He became equal in size to most of the Dragons.

  The size was helpful, and the wings—in other circumstances—allowed flight when he was willing to carry her. She thought the mark was heavier than she was, or was becoming heavier.

  It has not changed, Hope said. It is your perception of it that has, no more. You could do this without my interference, but you rely on the paradigms with which you are familiar. You are very odd, he repeated. He set a clawed paw beneath the weight of the mark. You are certain?

  She was.

  He walked it to the edge of the crevice that split the ground, and dropped it in.

  * * *

  Kaylin was certain the Dragons still shouted, but a silence fell across the great hall, and it seemed to spread—as if it were ice to their fire, calm to their fury. She rose, her legs tingling as blood flow returned to the parts below her knees.

  The red and orange of fire and melted stone faded until the color in the hall was once again gray. She listened—but she wasn’t certain for what; she had wanted silence, and she’d been given it. Very carefully, she peered down the crevice. She could see glints of gold and glints of blue, although the blue was dark and less immediately visible.

  “Move,” Bellusdeo shouted up at Kaylin.

  Kaylin backed up, and then backed up again for good measure. Both Dragons remained in their draconic forms, but they’d have to. The bottom of the crevice was a long way down, and even in mortal form, they were heavy enough that they couldn’t leap up to the ground on which Kaylin stood.

  “Okay,” she said to her familiar—who had immediately shed the larger size. “What were you saying before?”

  It is not necessarily wise to send Bellusdeo out. If what your friends feel is true, she is most at risk. You have seen her lose her temper—as you put it—twice in a very short period of time; she is unsettled. This is not likely to make her more settled.

  “Yeah, but if she finds out we didn’t tell her, she’s going to be pissed off for decades, and I have to live with her.”

  If Karriamis accepts her—and I cannot, frankly, see how, given the events of today—she will not be living with you.

  “Helen would never keep her out.”

  Hope snorted. Because you wouldn’t. She will still have permission to visit the Halls of Law and to accompany you on your regular duties.

  Bellusdeo cut the conversation short by landing. Emmerian followed. She thought the blue Dragon was injured, but couldn’t tell at this distance; he didn’t transform, and she thought injuries would be more obvious if he had.

  Bellusdeo’s eyes were orange. Emmerian’s eyes were orange. Peace, such as it was, had returned them not to a happy place, but to a cautious one. She didn’t see Karriamis. As if the thought were an invocation, the last of the Dragons flew up, to the height of the ceiling. He did not land.

  In this light he seemed copper, or perhaps orange with a silver cast to the color. She knew Dragon color could shift—as their eyes did—with emotion, but Bellusdeo had always remained gold.

  “Chosen,” Karriamis said, in full draconic rumble.

  Kaylin ignored him. She headed toward Bellusdeo, but stopped short as her housemate lifted her head in warning. She glanced at Emmerian, who had turned his head to look up at Karriamis’s draconic Avatar.

  “Before the three of you start up again, we have a small emergency.”

  Karriamis said nothing. Bellusdeo, however, turned immediately to Kaylin. “What’s happened?”

  “Well, half of the cohort decided to follow you here. Or get here before you.”

  “That’s not generally considered an emergency.”

  “No. Teela was minding her own business, but she’s here. Nightshade is here.”

  “Lord Nightshade is in my fief?” Karriamis’s voice was thunder.

  “Yes. He has eyes and he watches his border, and something rose out of Ravellon and flew here.”

  Bellusdeo growled, “Climb,” to Kaylin. Kaylin struggled up her back and took a seat as the Dragon began to run. The hall elongated; it was a trick Kaylin had seen before.

  “Karriamis—we don’t have time.”

  Karriamis roared. If he had been affected by the mark of the Chosen at all, it wasn’t obvious. Emmerian pushed off the ground, his wings snapping out and moving as he gained speed.

  The Tower’s Avatar flew. He could cover far more ground than the normal Dragons could, and did; he landed in front of them and spread his wings. It was not a gesture of peace. He roared again.

  Bellusdeo stopped, skidding across stone.

  Emmerian, however, did not. He turned to the gold Dragon. “I’ll go.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Kaylin started to dismount, and Bellusdeo growled. Clearly Emmerian was considered independent enough to make his own decision, and Kaylin was not.

  To Severn, she said, Emmerian’s coming.

  I heard. Tell Nightshade.

  He’s not with you?

  No. He and Teela headed into the street.

  “That is unwise,” Karriamis said. “This is not the fief of Nightshade; he is far more vulnerable to attack here than he would be should he stand his ground in his own fief.”

  “He also has a personal score to settle with the outcaste; the outcaste interfered with his fief. He’s not stupid enough to go into Ravellon to reach him, but if he comes out...”

  “Perhaps you did not hear me.”

  “Nightshade wields one of The Three. And Teela wields one as well. Look—they’ve fought Dragons before. They’ve survived.”

  “Outcaste Dragons are not Dragons,” Karriamis snapped.

  “No. Not entirely. But—Teela isn’t entirely Barrani either, and never say that where she can hear it. Her companions are here, and they’re definitely not normal Barrani. You met one. Mandoran. And Terrano. The swords were made to fight Dragons, and I’ve seen them in use.”

  “The outcaste did not come here alone.”

  Bellusdeo exhaled smoke. No fire, not yet. “Show us—please show us—what’s happening in the fief.”

  “I cannot divert the power to do so,” Karriamis replied. His eyes were no longer Dragon eyes; they were shadow eyes, obsidian and flecked with moving color. “This is very poorly timed.”

  “For you,” Kaylin replied. “It’s not poorly timed for the outcaste—he must know you have no captain. We need to join our friends.”

  “No, you do not. Your Sedarias understands why the outcaste has come. It is not to take the Tower; he would not survive his entry should he be bold enough or foolish enough to make the attempt. It is entirely about Bellusdeo.”

  The Dragon tensed beneath Kaylin.

  “He can try.” Kaylin didn’t need to see the color of the Dragon’s eyes. She knew.

  “Bellusdeo—” Before she could speak, Hope did. In his angry squawking voice, which happened to be beside Kaylin’s left ear.

  This didn’t make Bellusdeo any less tense.

  “He is right,” Karriamis said. He began to dwindle into a more familiar, mortal form. “If you follow me, you may see the state of the streets and the skies. You may make your decision at that time. I admit I am curious; I did not see The Three in act
ive use.”

  “But you knew of them.”

  “Of course. We all did.”

  Bellusdeo exhaled again, told Kaylin to get off of her back, and then resumed the much more familiar “mortal” form. “Lead,” she told the Avatar.

  He raised a brow at her tone but nodded and turned.

  * * *

  Lead in this case had a slightly different meaning than it would in another building. The hall contracted without narrowing, and they reached the end of it between the first step and the second. The end led to stairs, and the stairs led up. They were wide—too wide, in Kaylin’s opinion; they were also tall, but the width made the height seem shorter than it actually was. They were constructed around a central pillar, very much like the stairs that occupied Helen’s training room, but at least these had rails, and the drop over the rails was well lit and ended in floor.

  “They are constructed for your use, of course,” Karriamis said. “Stop dawdling.”

  Kaylin would have resented this more, but Bellusdeo was jogging up the stairs. She was taller than Kaylin in this form but not by that much. Kaylin therefore sped up, allowing Bellusdeo to set the pace.

  The stairs ended on a wide landing, and the landing became a large, wooden floor that extended without obvious doors or arches separating it from the stairs.

  “I find them too fussy,” Karriamis said.

  Bellusdeo didn’t hear him. She followed the floor until it reached wall—although wall was the wrong word for it, as it was mostly window, and appeared to be open to the air. They had reached the Tower’s height; beneath them, the fief of Candallar spread out. The Dragon wasn’t looking at the fief.

  She was looking at the skies, and what the skies contained. Shadows flew—but no, Kaylin thought, they couldn’t be Shadow. The Towers had control of the space. But they could be like the outcaste: not one thing, not the other. She didn’t understand—couldn’t understand—how the outcaste could get past all of the Tower barriers that kept Ravellon and its occupants caged.

  At the heart of a cloud of wings was the outcaste; he was ebon, and wing-tip to wing-tip the size of Bellusdeo. As he approached with what seemed either escort or soldiers, she recognized the forms and the wings: Aerian. These were Aerian. But their wings? They were as black as the outcaste Dragon.

  Kaylin turned to Karriamis, who stood at a distance. “Well?”

  He met her eyes, his obsidian. “Well?”

  “Did you allow Candallar’s friend to take a Shadow you knew was there? Or was the Shadow masked somehow by its carrier?”

  “I would not have sensed it,” he finally replied. Bellusdeo wheeled.

  “But you said—”

  “I said I had hope, Lord Kaylin. I said that the outcome, in the end, was fortuitous. I said that I was aware of the plan.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Yes.” He was watching the skies. “The outcaste, as the Barrani Lord, masters; he is not mastered by. I am aware of him; were he to land in my streets, I would know. But I would not know that he was of Shadow, or that he had consumed it; I would know because he is outcaste, and I am now aware of his existence.

  “He entered the fief of Nightshade, I believe.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “I think members of your cohort have taken to the air.”

  Kaylin couldn’t see them. Neither could Bellusdeo—but at the moment, Bellusdeo had eyes for only one creature: the outcaste. Everything else was irrelevant detritus. Kaylin could see her face in profile, but didn’t need to look to know the color of her eyes.

  “Look,” Karriamis said quietly, his voice much closer to her ear than the rest of him.

  She did.

  Bellusdeo’s eyes were orange with deep, deep flecks of crimson. Rage had not fully transformed their color. “How permeable is this window?” she asked, the question almost casual.

  Karriamis wasn’t fooled. “As you suspect, the window can serve as a portal.”

  The gold Dragon slid her hands behind her back as she watched.

  Emmerian had reached the street; he had joined Teela and Nightshade, dwarfing them in his draconic form. Kaylin couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  No, wait. She could.

  Nightshade. She didn’t have to ask. He let her in as she closed her own eyes and looked through his. Emmerian and Teela were speaking; Nightshade, sword unsheathed, observed the skies while he listened.

  “We have never attempted to fight a war as a cohesive unit,” the blue Dragon rumbled. “I do not feel that today is the correct time to make the attempt.”

  “It won’t be the first time I’ve ridden on a Dragon’s back. Kariannos is capable of ranged attack, as you should well know.”

  “I know that the sword was effective against Dragons when you did not have the simple option of flight,” the Dragon snapped.

  How long have they been going at it?

  Subjectively?

  Objectively, Kaylin snapped, as annoyed as Teela sounded.

  Since Lord Emmerian emerged from the Tower. I confess I do not understand the outcaste’s target, here. Karriamis will not accept the outcaste as its lord. There is a small possibility that other Towers might, but Karriamis is a Dragon at heart.

  Kaylin was appalled. The other Towers are occupied.

  Yes. Clearly the outcaste understands that if damage is to be done in any significant fashion, it is to be done before the Tower takes a captain.

  Kaylin turned to Karriamis. “How limited are your powers if you have no captain?”

  “Against Shadows I can perceive, I have no limits.”

  “And these?”

  “Are not Shadow as it was once perceived. I am old, Lord Kaylin. And I fail to understand why you, as Chosen, remain within the Tower.”

  “Bullshit.” Bellusdeo reached out and place a very heavy palm on Kaylin’s shoulder—which was not her mouth. She took the unspoken warning.

  Karriamis smiled. “It is not a lie. I fail to understand how you—with your paltry decades of probable life should you learn to be cautious—do not understand how to invoke the power of the marks of the Chosen. In other worlds and at other times, the weapons of the Barrani would be irrelevant in comparison. As would Lord Emmerian, and even Bellusdeo.”

  Kaylin turned toward the stairs, or tried; Bellusdeo’s grip tightened. “I need that shoulder,” she snapped.

  “It’s a collarbone, and yes, you do. Do not let him goad you.”

  “Why not? You did!”

  Emmerian took to the sky. He was carrying Teela.

  Yes, Nightshade said. Annarion and Sedarias offered to...show her how to take advantage of very specific weight reduction to...climb, I believe. It is not something An’Teela has done before, and Lord Emmerian, given the nature of the cohort, wished to avoid any other unpredictable catastrophes.

  Where are the rest of the cohort?

  I believe they are attempting to convince the occupants of the buildings that directly surround the Tower to leave. He thought it a waste of time. This predictably annoyed Kaylin.

  It is a waste because they will not be heeded. They themselves are not in any danger yet, but the mortals who shelter here will not be moved except by force—and force takes far more time. Will Bellusdeo join us?

  No. But I’m pretty sure we’re going to see Tiamaris soon.

  Indeed.

  Kaylin fell silent for a long beat. You don’t think it’s going to be enough.

  I think the Aerians have been in Ravellon, and while they are not of Shadow, they have been transformed. Ah, no, he added, the words are not precise. Ask Karriamis what happens when those who are infected by Shadow are overcome by it.

  “The living are not all of one thing, they are not all of another. Especially mortals. While they are bound by simple truths—birth, death—everything in between
can be radically different. They have mortal forms, of course—but those might take damage, they might lose arms, legs, eyes or hearing; they have different proclivities, and in a matter of a simple decade they can transform so much they might not be recognizable as the same individuals without prior experience.

  “They are already shifting, mutable existences; they age. Tests for purity could not be performed on mortals. Not even your animals.” He glanced at Kaylin. “There is a reason your Ferals exist; a reason they can leave Ravellon and return to it. The Towers were not created to prevent their escape; they were not created to take note of each rodent that crosses the border.”

  Bellusdeo pulled a piece of rock from the window frame as the outcaste drew closer.

  “Therefore Shadow of a certain type can enter a mortal; it can make changes. You yourself have experienced this; you bear Shadow now as an intrinsic part of your hand. It is not, however, sentient. Such a power is a tool, just as sword or bow might be.”

  Bellusdeo growled. Her hand, however, remained on Kaylin’s shoulder.

  “The danger with Shadow as a power—a summoned power—is the sentience. Summon fire, water, earth, air, and you are aware of the danger of that sentience, such as it is; it is a battle of, a contest of, will. Shadow is not, and has never been, the same. It is far less elemental, and it does not require the exercise of will in the same fashion; it is far more subtle.

  “However, I feel you are not asking the correct question, and Bellusdeo grows impatient. The outcaste is powerful enough that he can carry that Shadow; it will not overwhelm him. He is intelligent enough to understand, however, the limits of those who fly at his side now.

  “They could pass the barrier we created when they first left Ravellon by air. They would not, however, pass it so easily now. In an hour, perhaps two, they will be hollowed out, dead, and yet ambulatory.”

  “Can’t you do something about them?”

  “Soon, Chosen.”

  23

  Tiamaris did fly in; Kaylin could see him as a glint of red that hurtled toward the fief—and its attackers—as if he were a ball of fire. He was, to her knowledge, the only other fieflord who could take immediately to the sky to deal with threats to his fief.