parallel. Though the space was only moderately dim, there were no torches in evidence; if this was still a part of the Court, it was a deep and primitive one.
Pevan shook her hand free of his, and despite himself, Rel turned to look at her. She returned a wan smile, then rubbed her forehead. He found himself mimicking the gesture as he turned back to Taslin. The Court was supposed to be less freakish and illogical than the rest of the Second Realm. He could feel his logic fatigue already growing problematic.
Taslin took a couple of short steps forward and turned. "We should be word-safe here. Speak."
"Uh..." Rel's brain stalled as he peered past her down the corridor. "Where are we?" The words made no impression on the Realmspace at all.
"Deep in the heart of the Court. These are some of the earliest chambers constructed." The Gift-Giver's eyes narrowed. "Humans have not stood down here since before the Treaty of Peace, because there are things down here to which your very presence is a danger."
Rel swallowed, thoughts dragging back to him. "Barrit told me once that Hurshu swore that the dais in the Great Hall was denser than was spatially possible." He blinked, remembering Taslin's age. "Hurshu was Federas' Guide before Barrit."
"I know who Hurshu was." There was a new sharpness to Taslin's tone, and in the gloom her eyes flared subtly. "He should not have been Guiding in the Great Hall, however much he was a hero in his own way."
A chill spread through Rel, and from the muffled sound of Pevan swallowing, something similar had to be going through her too. Just how precious were the things the Wildren kept down here? And how fragile?
Her voice trembling, Pevan said, "Hurshu took up service almost fifty years ago. Not that long after the Treaty..."
"Be that as it may, we are all fortunate his misdemeanours caused no damage and went undetected." Some of the humanity had gone out of Taslin's voice, her words flattening out and clipping off short. Either her attention had moved elsewhere, probing for fifty-year-old damage, or she was so furious that her concentration was slipping. What did they keep down here?
He didn't ask. Instead, past a tight chest and a new wave of chills spreading across his shoulders, he said, "Why have you brought us down here?"
"If there are Separatists in the Court, then they may attempt to penetrate this area." The Gift-Giver's face came back into focus, her expression now stern rather than sculpted. "The Justice-Traders did not leave the Crash Caucus until after these early structures had been built, and the surviving galleries transferred here."
"Justice-Traders? Who are they?" Pevan still sounded nervous, but at least she'd moved out from behind him.
"They were the antecedents of the Separatists. The name is an approximation." A soft, deep glow, like sunlight through darkly-stained glass, rose in Taslin's eyes. She seemed to be taking a long time to recover her composure. "Before the Crash, they were modernists and reformers, struggling against the tight controls established by the Clear-Seers and Realm-Finders. The discovery that humans were not bound by Talerssi turned them against your kind, though. The Separatists would see my kind back to the days before the Crash, whatever the cost."
Rel nodded slowly, scanning the walls for any signs of movement. The Court was supposed to be built in such a way as to reveal Wildren whether they wanted it or not, but this part of it was primitive. Not that his search would mean much without the benefit of Clearsight. He said, "Shouldn't we get moving, then?"
"Only with extreme caution." Taslin's voice came lowered, its tone like a cat stalking mice through wolf territory. "You two must keep your thoughts trapped under iron. If you become a danger to any of the things in this place, I will Negate you instantly."
It took a moment for the words to sink in. Taslin's tone hadn't changed at all, but the threat was unthinkable. Rel's gut froze solid, the cold so deep that his earlier chills were reduced by comparison to nothing more than the stray streamers of a spring breeze. He exchanged a look with Pevan, whose face was grey.
There could be no doubting that Taslin was capable of Negation. All Gift-Givers were, and she was powerful even by their standards. She had said outright, only that morning, that if she hadn't needed Rel's help against the Separatists, she would have Negated him at the Abyss. And unlike some Wildren, Taslin knew exactly what the threat entailed for a human. Even when put in the total stasis of Negation, a Wilder could simply wait to thaw out. By the time a human recovered, his body would have given up waiting for a mind to return to it.
The Gift-Giver either saw or outright felt their discomfort. Her face softened, though the glow in her eyes never shifted. "I say that as a warning, not a threat. It is a deeply ingrained reflex in my kind."
"What..." Pevan barely got the word out, shallow and hoarse, before her throat closed off. She gave a loud swallow and tried again. "What is it that you're... protecting?"
Taslin's expression flickered. In the dim light, it was hard to make out the rapid sequence of expressions, but Rel had seen her do something similar before, usually while trying to bridge the gap between Second- and First-Realm logic. After a long moment, she said, "The Gallery of Neonates, the Gallery of Liars, The Gallery of Narcissists and The Gallery of Desperation."
"What are they?" Speaking quietly made him sound less confident than he felt. The threat of Negation was a frightening one, but Taslin trusted them enough to bring them here. And it wasn't like he hadn't fought Wildren capable of Negation before.
"I will show you the Gallery of Liars." Again, Taslin's face wavered. "For the rest, you can wait."
He nodded. "Lead on."
"Rel..." Pevan's fear choked off her speech, and he shot her a frown. It wouldn't help, of course, but this was no time for her to lose her nerve.
Taslin spoke before he could. "There is no need to follow exactly, but do not touch any door you see, and where possible stay to the middle of the corridors. Keep your speech to a minimum." The Gift-Giver's voice warmed slightly. "Both of you are here under my protection. I intend to see you safely back to your kind."
Pevan gave a mute, stiff nod, and for a moment Rel thought she'd frozen. When Taslin set off into the dim, ancient haze that hung along the corridor, though, Pevan fell into step with Rel, eyes fixed on a point just behind the Gift-Giver's ankles. She normally only drew inward like this - silent, pinch-faced, eyes distant - when grieving, or remembering dead comrades. Probably the mention of Hurshu had triggered it. Neither of them had known the old Guide, but you couldn't think of him without thinking of Temmer.
Rel let the walls and decor derail that train of thought. The hallway was almost ordinary, provided you didn't look too hard at any point where more than two straight lines met. The walls were covered in faint swirls and spirals, barely more than scratches in the surface, giving a sense of age to the place that it couldn't possibly truly have. The Court, even this part of it, was only seventy years old. The stonework looked as if someone had tried to make it look like a thousand-year-old ruin.
He managed to suppress the urge, just in time, to reach out and run a finger along the designs. For a moment, he paused, hand half-raised, eyes tracing one long, slow spiral. It would be a nightmare to try using Clearsight down here - the etchings would suck attention away like a whirlpool. Maybe that was the point.
Ahead, Taslin paused at an archway, standing on the far side of it with an arm raised to guide them through. When she spoke, her voice was soft with awe. "The Gallery of Liars."
Her tone held Rel at bay on the threshold long enough for his eyes to take in the room beyond; and his eyes told him he wanted to go no further anyway. Grey space, framed by high grey walls and a bare grey floor, stretched away into an impenetrable, murky distance. By the standards of the Court, it was not a wide or high room, but it gave off the same resonant feel of vastness that came to one in the Great Hall.
And in two neat rows, facing each other, separated at twenty-foot intervals, were the Liars.
No two were exactly alike in shape or shade, but all were roughly the
same. Lumpen, like boulders, they towered over the aisle between them. They seemed to be made of lightning, or perhaps evening sunlight, trapped in thick grey storm clouds. Deep in the heart of each, the light - whatever it was - flickered constantly, as if in there somewhere thunder still raged.
He turned, wordlessly, to Taslin. The Gift-Giver said, "You have heard that my kind do not lie in our own Realm." It wasn't a question. "This is what becomes of one who does. Their Talerssi to all my kind overwhelms them."
"Why keep them?" Pevan whispered. "A warning?"
Violet flashed in Taslin's eyes. "Not these. These are the Liars whose lies preserved life, or furthered the noble and right causes among our kind. A very few, in the thousands of years since the Gallery was first assembled, have recovered, so the remainder are kept here for their safety. One who lies otherwise is left for the predators."
She drew a deep, unsteady breath, an exaggerated and obvious performance of nervousness, but the way she caught Rel's eye, just for an instant at the top of the motion, said she knew he was thinking that. Dora, always the teacher, would have lavished her with praise for the combination. Rel tried to look complimentary, or at least keep the instinctive flash of anger off his face.
When she spoke again, the performance continued, faultless, in the faltering of her voice. "I
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