Which was entirely irrelevant to immortals, as far as Kaylin knew. She kept this to herself. “I’m not saying it’s the same.”
“No—it wouldn’t be. But it implies two things, neither of which is in any way positive.”
“And those are?”
He stared at Ybelline, but answered. “Sigils are representative of the caster’s magical power. It is why they are unique.”
She knew that, and tried not to resent his explanation of the obvious. Maybe someone in the Tower didn’t. Like, say, Gilbert. Or Kattea, who couldn’t listen at the moment.
“You will perhaps note—or perhaps not, given your training and education—that the same sigil has different styles of presentation, depending on the school of magic utilized.”
This was less obvious, to Kaylin. In general, she didn’t notice the style of, say, everyday handwriting—only the legibility.
“You feel that these runes are similar to the sigils you found in the Leontine quarter. Sanabalis has seen those sigils—he does not interpret them the way you do, of course, but that is a matter for later. The sigil, at the time, you described as black smoke.”
Kaylin nodded.
“What is the similarity, then?”
Kaylin wasn’t quite certain. The problem with the Arkon’s questions was that he expected good answers, and he was short on patience. Fair enough. They were short on time.
“While you are gathering your thoughts, we will descend.”
“Private Neya,” the Hawklord said, as the Arkon headed toward the Tower doors. “The Arkon is the voice of the Emperor for the duration of this crisis. You will obey his commands as if the Emperor—or the Lord of Hawks—had personally issued them. Before you leave the building, visit the quartermaster.”
The situation was dire enough that Kaylin didn’t even think to flinch.
“Take flares. Also,” he added, “take a portable mirror.”
“We can’t use mirrors—”
“At the moment, there are no connections to the mirror network, and it is just possible that it is the network that needs...adjustment.”
“Gilbert, do you think it’s safe to have one on hand?” Gilbert looked up. He didn’t answer; Kaylin wasn’t certain he could hear her.
“Gilbert!” Kattea said, in mild disgust. Kaylin saw that Ybelline had released the girl. The girl, however, had not released Ybelline; she was holding on, tightly, to the Tha’alani’s hand. “He gets like this,” Kattea told the castelord. She let go of the hand she’d gripped so tightly with obvious reluctance, and walked across the room to where Gilbert, a pile of golden, glowing words in his hands, stood.
Reaching out, she caught his wrists in both of her hands. “Gil-bert. Gilbert.”
“Why is he called Gilbert?” the Arkon asked her.
Kattea said, “He needed a name.”
“And he chose that one?”
“No, I chose that one. Is something wrong with it? Gilbert.” She sighed. She followed that sigh with a single word that was nothing like a name. It was nothing, in the end, like any of the other words Kattea was prone to speak. The air crackled around its syllables. Even the Arkon looked surprised.
Gilbert, however, blinked rapidly. The words in his hands dissolved; he shook them as if they were liquid, and his hands, wet. “Ah, Kattea. Have you finished your discussion with Ybelline?”
“Yes—because no one else could get your attention.”
“I am sorry. I was attempting to read the words.”
“Is that a smart idea?” she demanded. “I mean—doing it here?”
He blinked. “It is only reading. I did not attempt to invoke their power in any way. I do not think they have power, independent of their original location.” He looked up at Kaylin. “I am considering your Arkon’s question. I did not see the sigil you speak of. But I understand differences in style and presentation.
“What was the purpose of the spell that caused the sigil to be written as smoke and darkness?”
Kaylin frowned. “At the time? It was meant to kill me. To kill us,” she added, nodding in Severn’s direction. She cursed the lack of immortal memory; it made her job much harder. Teela never had this difficulty. “The sigil didn’t look like a sigil to me, not at first. It really did look like black smoke. But the smoke formed curves, loops—cursive elements of actual writing. They had dimension. Usually sigils don’t. They’re kind of splashed across walls or floors or physical objects that happened to be in the blast radius.”
“And is that the similarity?”
“I don’t know. The smoke never stopped moving. By the time it had stilled enough, Sanabalis had dragged me out of the wreckage. I couldn’t read it, but I didn’t get a better chance to study it.”
The Arkon exhaled. “The street,” he said grimly.
“Did Sanabalis not tell you?”
“I will have words with him when this is over.”
* * *
The quartermaster was grim. Kaylin was not, and had never been, his favorite person; he considered her young, feckless and grossly irresponsible. Giving her a flare was not a problem; giving her a portable mirror was. Had she not had the Arkon literally standing over her shoulder, he would have refused; she hadn’t had time to wait for Hanson’s requisition order.
Though he always made a point of following strict procedure when dealing with Kaylin, he was clearly not willing to play that game with a member of the Dragon Court.
He was stickler enough that he demanded the Arkon’s signature, though. Kaylin, given the orange of the Arkon’s eyes, wouldn’t have dared. This was probably why she wasn’t the quartermaster.
The halls, as they walked swiftly through them, were silent—mostly because they were empty. It was likely that the Hawks had joined the Swords on the Winding Path. It had only been three weeks since the ancestors had attacked the High Halls; only three weeks since over a dozen Hawks had been buried. For the Swords, the losses had been higher; the Swords had been trained to deal with panicking crowds.
You didn’t send untrained men into those crowds and expect good results, although you could pray.
* * *
If the Halls of Law felt deserted, the streets surrounding them were not. And the thanks Hawks and Swords would get for putting their lives on the line in an emergency boiled down to invective, resentment and very harried compliance.
Some days, Kaylin hated people.
The Arkon appeared to dislike them even more than she did. If she wanted to kick them or curse them—and sadly, she did—she didn’t want them to wind up on the wrong side of angry Dragon breath. They were just as afraid and just as ignorant as she was, on bad days, and she didn’t feel she deserved reduction to ash, either.
People screamed and got out of the way when the Arkon, with no warning, transformed, the plates of his armor opening and falling, on invisible hinges, toward the ground. Kattea was one of those people. Gilbert scooped her up and took one step to the side as the Arkon’s wings exploded from between human-seeming shoulder blades. His neck lengthened. His tail appeared. His head expanded. This last made Kaylin snicker.
“We are going to your abode,” the Arkon said, without looking back. “Now. You can climb up on my back. Sit between the ridges. Or I can carry you in my claws.”
No one took him up on the latter, although Kattea was fearful enough that she might have been forced to, if not for Gilbert. Gilbert, holding her, leaped up. She turned into his chest, threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder.
Ybelline’s hesitance was purely physical. None of it reached her face. She clearly wanted to go back to the Tha’alani quarter, but she didn’t ask. Anything that needed to be said to the other members of the Tha’alanari, she could say from here. Or from anywhere in the city.
Kaylin
was only barely seated when the Arkon roared and pushed off the ground. She settled her hands against his back; Severn caught her waist and held it.
The Arkon had been injured three weeks ago. Injured enough that Bellusdeo had been—and still was—very worried. But she knew the Dragon would probably bite her arms off if she tried to heal him. Dragon bodies weren’t like mortal bodies; they were a duality. Kaylin wondered if she could sort of...sneak healing in while he was preoccupied.
“I will drop you,” the Arkon said loudly. “And if you’d deserve it, Kattea doesn’t.”
Which was a no. “Will you land in Helen’s tower?”
“I will land in the street.”
“Our tower’s bigger than the Hawklord’s—and Helen is safer.”
The Arkon growled. But to Kaylin’s surprise, he took her advice.
* * *
She hadn’t lied, but she hadn’t exactly been truthful, either; Helen could shift the interior of the house to accommodate any guest. The tower’s aperture opened as the Arkon approached it from on high; it was wide enough that he could—with caution—land. He did, but the landing was heavy, and he was silent while his passengers disembarked.
“Welcome,” Helen said. Or rather, Helen’s voice. Her Avatar had not yet reached the tower. “We’ve been waiting. Mandoran is very upset.”
Kaylin remembered the revelation she’d had back in the Hawklord’s Tower. Movement returned in a frenzied rush as she raced for the door, yanked it open and took the stairs four at a time. Helen would see to the guests.
* * *
For some reason, the dining room had become the gathering spot for Helen’s inhabitants. The parlor was in theory more comfortable and more homey—but it was only used when there were guests. The fact that there were guests didn’t change the venue this time, however.
Mandoran and Annarion were seated at the dining room table.
“Teela?”
Mandoran nodded. “We can hear her. Barely, but we can hear her.”
“Tain?”
“She says he’s alive. More or less. She’s pissed off at him, if that helps.”
“Not really—it just means he’s more injured than she is, probably because he was trying to do something stupid, like protect her.”
“Got it in one.”
Kaylin exhaled. She closed her eyes. Eyes closed, she could more clearly hear Kattea—which meant Gilbert was close. She inhaled deeply and opened her eyes. Small and squawky was seated on her shoulder, wings folded, eyes alert. Ybelline was a yard behind Gilbert and Kattea.
“Does she know what happened?”
“This would be a lot easier,” Mandoran said, “if we had your name. Or if you had ours. I get that you don’t want to let yours slip—but—” He subsided because Annarion had kicked him. “She says to tell you this is yet another attempt to gain immortality.”
“The Arcanist was Barrani. He already has immortality!”
Mandoran gave Annarion a look. “This,” he said, rising, “is stupid.”
Annarion rose as well and stepped in front of him.
“I mean it.”
“He gets that,” Kaylin said. “And we don’t—we don’t need to do this. Helen can hear you. Helen can translate.”
Helen’s Avatar appeared in the far door. “I cannot translate well,” she said half-apologetically, “and I confess I do not understand your reluctance; it is your name and should be your choice. Kaylin, however, is hesitant. She considers it dangerous.”
“Why? She’s mortal. She’ll die in a handful of years.”
“Because she is Chosen, and she doesn’t understand what that means. Your Teela is correct, in a fashion. Immortality is the translation—it is an ancient Barrani word, and it does not have meaning in Elantran as it is currently spoken.
“You have had—Teela tells Mandoran—some experience with the Barrani who seek...freedom? From the shackles of their names. That freedom exists in the mortal; it does not exist in the immortal. It does not exist for either myself or Gilbert. Once I would not have understood the desire; it would have seemed tantamount to suicide.
“But I have come to understand it, with time.”
“Would you destroy your name?”
“I have already destroyed parts of it, as you know. But no, Kaylin. That is not exact. I have cut off limbs. I have closed eyes. But the core of my name is still transcribed by, proscribed by, words—and I do not resent them. They gave me life. But there is persistent belief that freedom from words conveys limitless power to those who were created to contain words.
“To my eye, it does not; you were not created to contain words, and you are limited in ways that your immortals are not. But I have never been ambitious.”
“Mandoran—what happened in the Arcanum? Why did the—whatever it is—start at the Winding Path? Teela went to the Arcanum, didn’t she?”
He nodded.
“And then she went to the Winding Path?”
“No.”
“So where is she?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Is it a room? Is it—”
“She doesn’t know, Kaylin. It’s dark where she is. She’s injured. Tain is injured. She’s carved out a small space—”
“Tell her—tell her to use elemental shielding, if she can.” Kaylin had no idea what Teela’s magical abilities were. Beyond the implication that Teela had once belonged to the Arcanum, she knew nothing about Teela’s magical past. Teela had never volunteered the information. But Kaylin had only asked once.
“She wants to know what you mean by elemental shielding.”
“The Tha’alani used it—will use it—in future. It seemed to stop the spread of—of whatever ends up killing most of the city.”
Ybelline lifted a hand. She was frowning. “You have your own Tha’alaan between you, yes?”
Neither Mandoran nor Annarion had been part of this city when it had become a city; they had very little familiarity with the Tha’alani—probably a good thing for the Tha’alani. They looked at Ybelline.
“No,” Kaylin said, before anyone spoke. She caught Ybelline’s shoulder. “You do not want to do this.”
“I have touched Gilbert’s thoughts without ill effect. I believe your Teela can do what we did, but much more effectively, if rumors about her past are true. What you tell her of what I’ve said will take time.”
“Mandoran is not a normal Barrani—”
“I know. Which is why there is some chance that he will allow this. My communication does not require knowledge of his name. And you will not have to take it, either.”
Mandoran said something colorful in Aerian.
Ybelline’s eyes narrowed instantly. Clearly, the castelord had a working knowledge of Aerian.
Mandoran walked around Annarion, who was stiff and wary, and presented himself to Ybelline. “This doesn’t hurt, does it?” he asked.
“Not unless you fight it, and even then, the pain is not physical.”
“I would not do that.” The Arkon had arrived.
* * *
If Mandoran was willing to listen to his cohort and the Chosen, he was absolutely not willing to take advice from an ancient Dragon—a Dragon who had, no doubt, existed at the time of the wars of the flights. He practically grabbed Ybelline by her shoulders and yanked her toward him. The castelord stumbled; Kaylin had to suppress the very strong urge to knock Mandoran off his feet.
Ybelline righted herself, lifted her hands and placed them on either of Mandoran’s shoulders—not his cheeks, as she had done with Kattea.
The Arkon exhaled smoke.
It was very hard to ignore an angry Dragon when he happened to be standing at your back. Kaylin managed, turning to face Annarion, as Mandoran was now busy. “The Tha’alani
had an experimental magic that seemed to protect them from whatever it was that will destroy this city. I don’t know if everyone dies—but the Tha’alani quarter perishes. Teela is alive—”
“Is she anywhere near Bellusdeo?”
“No,” Annarion said quietly. “She is not certain where Bellusdeo is.”
The Arkon’s eyes couldn’t get any more red, but he seemed game to try. He glared at Kaylin. She didn’t take this personally because he was glaring at everything, at the moment. “She has Maggaron with her.”
“And Sanabalis.” The Arkon exhaled. “With luck, he will actually listen to her. Bellusdeo’s tone can be difficult, but she is not, in general, reckless. And she has lived with Shadow and its subtleties for centuries.”
“I’m not sure this is about Shadow.”
“And you feel it is not? Given the sigils and their similarities?”
Kaylin glanced at Gilbert. “I’m beginning to think that we don’t understand nearly enough about what we call Shadow. Gilbert lived in Ravellon. There are elements of Gilbert that we would classify as Shadow—but I don’t think he means to absorb, devour or transform us. Or kill us all,” she added, just in case this wasn’t clear. “Gilbert was the one who first warned us against mirror use. It was only when we spoke to the Tha’alanari that his warning grew teeth.”
Ybelline pressed her weaving stalks gently against Mandoran’s forehead. Ybelline knew Mandoran’s mind was not Barrani, although it had once been. She knew that he was not immortal in the way the Barrani and the Dragons now were.
Her eyes, which she’d closed, widened; her entire body stiffened. Kaylin was behind her instantly, set to catch her if she fell. Mandoran, however, caught her waist, bracing her. His eyes were blue—but it was not the shade that meant danger or death. It was a pale, sky blue.
She had never seen that color in his eyes—in any of their eyes—before. She had seen it in the Consort, in the West March. She glanced at Annarion and was surprised to see that his eyes, while the regular sort of blue, now rested in a face that was bordering on crimson. So. Sky blue meant what she probably thought it meant.
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