But the Shadow on her hand didn’t speak; it didn’t try to take control; it sat there, above her skin, the same way the marks of the Chosen did. Even here, in the heart of the fiefs: Ravellon.
She touched Bakkon with the gloved hand; she touched him with the marked hand. He had heard the mark that had risen from her skin—and he’d wept. She had seen the Dragons speak these words. She had seen the words themselves when the former Arkon made the attempt. She had seen the marks on her arms grow in size—but she’d attributed that, until today, to the quasi-dream state that she’d been in.
Bakkon had heard the words she couldn’t say because she didn’t have syllables. Bakkon spoke them. Bakkon was something that had been trapped in Ravellon. She wasn’t certain he could leave it—and that probably should have been her first thought.
But there were Wevaran in the actual Tower of Liatt. And if the Tower accepted them, it meant they weren’t like Spike; they weren’t physically Shadow in the way that Gilbert had been. Bakkon should be able to join the few kin that remained, hidden, from the rest of Elantra.
If, that is, they could even reach the border. Kaylin wasn’t particular about which border at this point, and her geographic sense of the fief boundaries was completely flattened by the warped streets and buildings across which Bakkon leaped.
“Chosen!”
Trying not to panic, she glared at her arms. The marks remained stubbornly flat; she couldn’t hear them. None rose. And she couldn’t just choose one that meant “die” or “freeze.” But...but if she could get Bakkon out of here, he might be willing to teach her. The only other possible teacher was the former Arkon, the current chancellor of an institution that he must both build and protect.
Bakkon, she thought. At the moment, he no longer had a job.
She exhaled, closing her eyes, her hands now anchored only to the Wevaran. Eyes closed, she could see the one rune she had left in Bakkon’s library—even if it was theoretically behind her.
She listened, trying to separate the sounds of escape, of climbing, of spitting, from the sound of the word itself. The syllables fell into place and she began to speak them, almost to chant them. She’d never been any good at singing, but she’d been trained to shout—and to shout in a way that projected voice without sounding as if she was panicked or on the verge of screaming.
She did that now. She pitched those syllables into the growing noise of a mob, her voice rising above it. As she spoke, the mob stilled. Tendrils of shadow still strained upward in a cluster as they attempted to catch Bakkon, but they moved more slowly.
The mark had eclipsed the building they’d fled; it rose above the twisted, melting heights, and continued to spread past what would in a normal city be its walls, its boundaries. She could see what she’d identified as fog begin to darken—perhaps in response to the light the word shed.
She spoke more emphatically, repeating the word, and as she did, the gray seemed to settle into the core of her. She thought of Bakkon’s reaction—but Bakkon was himself. The Shadows who had gathered in the streets to stop Bakkon were not. But the blob had stopped as the word had made itself clear to him—and the Shadows were slowing and turning toward what she saw as a word. Not to Kaylin—who was speaking it—but to the word itself.
The light of the rune dimmed, thinning as the fog began to gather around it; she could see tendrils of shadow curl up the lines and swallow the smaller dots. Shadow could influence the shape of True Words—she’d seen that in the Tower of Tiamaris.
But this word was not the very heart of a Tower. It wasn’t the heart of anything; it was a word. A word that she thought the Shadows might understand, even if she didn’t. She could see the lines of it thin, elongate; could almost hear the sound of it change, as if there were now two voices speaking its syllables—hers and the bending rune itself.
It was like an argument, and Kaylin felt sweat bead and trickle down her forehead, almost as if she carried the weight of the larger-than-building rune just by speaking the syllables that comprised it. Mandoran’s grip on her arm shifted, as if he understood that Kaylin, at his back, was beginning to flag—while trying to stay seated on the back of a giant spider who was making a run for the border of Ravellon.
She couldn’t see it; couldn’t see anything but the words and the Shadows. And that made no sense, if she stopped to think about it; she had always been able to see the marks, when they glowed, with closed eyes; she had never been able to see Shadow the same way.
Here, she could. And she had no more time to think about it, about what that meant, because thinking broke the rhythm of the syllables, and the syllables had caught the attention of the Shadows, diminishing pursuit.
Mandoran loosed a volley of Leontine; Bakkon barked an order in a clicking screech that neither she nor the Barrani cohort member could understand. Kaylin’s eyes flew open as a cone of distinctly purple fire attempted to incinerate the Wevaran—and the passengers he carried.
The Dragon outcaste had arrived.
27
The cone of flame, anchored as it was by the very wide jaws of an enormous black dragon, hit the ground. Kaylin shifted her grip on Bakkon, placing a hand, once again, on Mandoran as the spider clambered up the side of a building. Purple fire with a heart of white turned the ground into a molten mess; out of the steam that arose, she could once again see what she had called fog.
It was difficult to reorient herself, but the presence of a Dragon made it easier: he took up a third of the skyscape from any vantage. They were close to the border. They had to be close; she could see street, and could see buildings that looked normal—if run-down—which implied a border was close.
That way! she shouted at Bakkon. He leaped down the street, and then up the side of a building and over a roof as the outcaste inhaled. Kaylin was willing to bet money that she could hear the sound of his drawn breath from where she sat, wind whistling in perpetual loose strands of hair.
Some of that hair was singed; the blast was close, the Dragon closer. She could feel the fire strike Bakkon’s back legs, which had been closer to the splash. She had some idea of what healthy meant for a Wevaran now, because it felt like she’d been in physical contact with one for hours. She immediately started to heal the damage the fire had caused.
To no one’s surprise, it was far easier thought than done; the purple fire was not like the regular kind, and the damage it caused seemed more persistent, as if the flame itself were like a worm or invasive insect that sought to spread beneath the flesh it had hit.
Thank you. Please continue to do that. You are certain about our direction?
Yes—but so’s the Dragon.
Dragon? Is that what you call it?
I call it a lot of things, but Dragon will do. Outcaste Dragon, she added, in case it mattered. To Kaylin at this very moment, it didn’t. The shadow of the outcaste loomed above them, more dangerous than the Shadow that the fiery breath had dislodged beneath.
Bakkon was attempting to reach the barrier of the border, but it was clear what his destination was, and it made targeting the Wevaran far simpler. The fire could strike in front of the next location, the next leap. Bakkon’s version of a straight line wasn’t the usual version, but it didn’t matter. If they wanted to survive to get out, no straight lines could be run.
Kaylin shifted her hold on Mandoran—more to keep herself on the Wevaran’s back than make sure the Barrani didn’t fall—trying to find the cadence of the syllables she’d been projecting; she lost them instantly as fire once again clipped Bakkon.
She fell silent as she healed the damage the fire was doing; concentrated as she uprooted tendrils of flame, ejecting them. Bakkon said nothing; she wasn’t certain he was even aware of the fire, he was moving so quickly.
Fire once again singed strands of Kaylin’s hair as it hit Bakkon; for the first time, flames licked up the back end of his body. All thought of True Wo
rds fled. She could heal the damage done, but it was work to remove the threads of flame that still bound themselves to Bakkon’s flesh.
She was aware of the moment that the Shadows surged again—tentacles burst from the sides of buildings, from the roofs, all places that Bakkon momentarily touched as he landed and leaped. He spit webbing, but none of that webbing formed the shield that it had formed in the library.
No, Chosen. I cannot weave that and run—and here, it is not enough defense.
She wished, briefly, that she hadn’t all but demanded that he come with them.
If I had not, you would be dead or lost. And the loss of the Chosen to the fallen is far more dangerous than the loss of one Wevaran.
Why?
Hush.
Fire. She could hear the roar of the outcaste, and she could see him clearly now, his great wingspan and the aerial advantage becoming more and more clear.
I’m sorry, she told the Wevaran. I don’t think we’re going to make it.
Continue with what you are doing. You might tell the boy to leap; I believe he has ways of escaping that are not available to you.
You can’t do the weird portal thing?
Not from here, no. I can create a portal, but it will not take us anywhere you wish to go. She felt a wave of pain pass through him, and caught it, hoping that the body’s sense of “right” or “healthy” conformed in some way to the healing she was attempting to do on the fly.
“Mandoran—Bakkon wants you to jump off. He thinks you can escape on your own.”
Mandoran shook his head. “One, I might accidentally dislodge you. Two, Teela would kill me.”
“She’s not here.”
“Look right,” he shouted back.
Kaylin immediately turned to her right. She saw a blur of melting building tops—“roofs” didn’t quite describe them—and a small burst of black dots that emerged from one of them.
“No, look up and right!”
Bakkon almost unseated them both as he leaped, his only attachment to anything solid a glistening thread of webbing; she lost any sense of direction as he spun. Mandoran didn’t have that problem. Bakkon didn’t either; he leaped, and leaped again. Kaylin briefly closed her eyes to avoid the dizziness the constant shift of visible landscape was causing, and managed to keep one hand on the Wevaran in case he got clipped—or worse—by fire again.
It didn’t happen. She realized that his frenetic hopping traced a large circle, from building top to side to street and back up, and when he’d finished, there was a literal web in the space transcribed by his leaping. He screeched and clicked what sounded like three distinct words, and then the web suddenly snapped shut—loudly—detaching its various threads from their moorings.
The black mass of what looked, at a distance, like an insect swarm was swallowed by the shuttered trap.
She looked up.
A gold Dragon was in the air, her breath a plume of constant flame aimed in its entirety at the Dragon outcaste. Bellusdeo had arrived. As lightning flew in a forked streak of light from the Dragon’s back, Kaylin understood why Mandoran had said Teela was here.
Kaylin cursed.
“Tell Teela to get Bellusdeo out of here! What in the hells is she thinking?”
Mandoran, however, said, “Bakkon, run now. And I’m not talking to Teela—to anyone—until we clear this place. I won’t take that risk!”
Kaylin was willing to bet any money that the rest of the cohort didn’t share this prohibition; they were probably screaming in his figurative ear by now.
Bakkon’s path was clear. He skittered and jumped from roof to roof, almost falling when one building collapsed, melting into the streets far beneath his feet. A spit glob of webbing prevented the fall as it attached itself to a building that wasn’t dissolving, or at least prevented their subsequent landing. The Wevaran moved.
Kaylin could see past the barrier; she could see the run-down and very mundane streets.
Just as she had when she was a child, she looked at those run-down buildings as salvation—they only had to reach them, and they would be safe.
But reaching them was going to be more of a problem, because the two Dragons were no longer the only thing in the sky above the one fief that had no Tower.
The Aerians—the shadow-melded Aerians with spears they seemed to extrude from their own bodies—had arrived. The cacophony of sound—the Dragons roaring, among others—was almost welcome. The Aerians were not.
“Incoming!” she shouted, as the much smaller flying enemies began to circle the streets and buildings across which Bakkon ran. She could see the spears; could hear their sibilant hiss as they were launched. She hadn’t heard that the first time. It was almost as if there were words in it.
They were words, she thought, that had somehow dragged both her and Mandoran here. She had no idea what would happen if those spears struck them while they were already in Ravellon. None of her best guesses were good.
No, Bakkon said, as she was still attached to him, still healing the small injuries that he’d taken. Nothing good will happen.
Can you stop them from hitting you?
Yes.
Us?
I am less certain. The noise took a back seat to Wevaran eyes as they bulged their way out of the sockets that contained them, rising on slender stalks that looked...not much different than strands of Shadow.
Wevaran legs were flexible. Far more flexible than mortal legs or midsections. The spears did fly; they simply failed to connect. She wanted—needed—time. No, wait, that was Bakkon’s thought. He wanted time. She had no way to give it to him.
Bellusdeo roared. This close, she could recognize the cadence of unintelligible draconic.
Another Dragon roared in response—not the outcaste, although his voice surged forward as if it were a shield against hers. A blue Dragon joined the fray, but it was an odd blue—metallic, almost shimmering, the color pale as clear sky. She caught a glimpse, no more; Bakkon was moving frenetically. But the glimpses—of gold, of black, and of blue—yielded a patchwork of information. The blue Dragon seemed to almost fade in the light of the sky above Ravellon. Lightning struck—this time, not the outcaste, but his small, flying squadron—and where it struck, screams followed. Screams of rage.
She saw the moment when the webbing spit from a thankfully obscured mouth came out pink, and understood what it meant; she’d seen it before. Bakkon had pushed past any reasonable, healthy limit that constrained the use of spider magic. He was continuing past those limits, and she gave up trying to catch a glimpse of the Dragons and concentrated on the healing.
Kaylin!
She thought she would never again be so grateful to hear Severn’s voice. We’re here—there are three of us. One’s like Starrante. We’re not dead. Yet. Where are you?
At the border. I cadged a ride with Emmerian. Could you not hear me until now?
No. Ummm, we’re coming out of Ravellon.
I can see that.
Can you let the people who might flame us to ashes know?
I’ll tell Terrano. He’s...surprisingly mobile in the air.
A blast of lightning brightened the sky; it came from the ground. Nightshade, she thought. She made no attempt to bespeak him. Nor did she ask Severn whether or not they’d emptied enough of the fief’s buildings before the outcaste had started his rain of fire.
Bellusdeo roared, and this time, Emmerian replied in kind.
Emmerian’s coming down, Severn said.
He can’t come into Ravellon!
Demonstrably he can. He hesitated and then said, Bellusdeo asked.
Is that what she just said?
According to Terrano, yes.
It didn’t sound like any variant of “ask” Kaylin was familiar with. To be fair, no spoken Dragon ever sounded like anything other than rage and fury to h
er ears.
What did she tell him?
To take care of the Aerians—and not to turn you to ash when you leave the barrier. In that order.
Is it me, or is Emmerian almost silver?
He’s silver.
She could see that now, because Emmerian began to descend.
Tell him not to do that, Bakkon said, voice urgent. It carried the undertone of both panic and exhaustion. Kaylin immediately passed the message to Severn and left it in his hands; hers were full.
Please, Bakkon said, stop feeling guilty. The request was yours. The decision was mine.
Since she hadn’t said a word of apology—well, okay, not more than a few—she was surprised. But surprised or no, she knit fibers of his body back together, alarmed at how they seemed to almost be separating—as if they were threads in a tapestry.
Emmerian didn’t land. Instead, he flew low, over them, his body a solid cloud; he breathed fire in front of Bakkon, and behind him, scorching what passed for stone until it screamed.
Stone screaming, buildings dodging, Bakkon leaping from unstable ground to unstable building over and over again beneath the shadow of a Dragon. The storm in the air above didn’t drop rain; in one or two cases, it dropped bodies. Aerian bodies, the unnatural gray of their wings seeping, once again, into the ground or the air from which it had come.
She could see—through Severn’s eyes, as hers were closed—some of the Aerians peel off in an attempt to land while their wings were burning.
And then, one last burst of costly speed, and Bakkon reached the barrier, slowing markedly at the last moment.
Get off, he told her. I am not certain that the barrier will allow me safe passage.
Then why did you come???
Because Ravellon would not have allowed you safe passage to reach it.
I am not getting off.
“Mandoran—get off. Go through the barrier.”
Cast in Conflict Page 44
