Cast in Honor (The Chronicles of Elantra)

by Michelle Sagara

  Because Gilbert, as he was now, couldn’t speak.

  No. That probably wasn’t true. Kaylin, as she was, couldn’t hear him.

  Be ready, Kaylin, the familiar said.

  She burst into the basement and nearly tripped over a body.

  * * *

  The body was Sanabalis. He was in mortal form, he wore gray Dragon armor and he appeared to be bleeding. He also seemed to be wheezing. Bellusdeo, almost in mortal form, was encased in armor the same golden hue as the Arkon’s; she was on her feet and armed with what appeared to be Maggaron’s weapon. Her eyes were bloodred.

  Kaylin couldn’t see what she was fighting. Whatever it was, it drove her back; the sound of metal hitting something was loud and clear. Beyond the combat, Kaylin could see three men. They were no longer laid out in a row against the ground; they stood at three points of a carved stone triangle, facing in toward its center.

  Kaylin landed and leaped instantly to her right; the Arkon came crashing down in the spot she had briefly occupied. He roared. The floor shook.

  Mandoran and Annarion followed, and behind them came Teela and Tain, both of whom were on their feet. Kaylin felt magic’s edge; she knew how they were on their feet, and she knew it wouldn’t last. Tain, at least, found a patch of convenient wall near Sanabalis and braced himself against it.

  Teela intended to fight.

  What she intended to fight wasn’t clear—at least not to Kaylin. She couldn’t see it. Maybe the Arkon could. Maybe Mandoran and Annarion could. She could take care of herself in most of the fights her job made necessary—but this wasn’t one of them. Let the immortals do what they did better.

  To the familiar, she said, Hide me.

  It is already done, but, Kaylin, be wary. What you face here is not a Feral or its distant, more powerful cousin.

  She headed directly for the three men, who were—as Gilbert had said—not dead. Something whistled past her theoretically invisible cheek. She felt the sting of a cut and raised her hand; it came away bloody. She didn’t swear—she headed straight for the center of the triangular formation and stopped.

  There were three stones where the three living men were standing. They existed in the same place as the men, although the men didn’t appear to be made of stone; the effect was disturbing. The men seemed to be breathing, but slowly, as if air was scarce. The stones appeared to be faintly pulsing in time to their labored breaths. Kaylin didn’t have time to examine them more carefully. Or at all; something struck her arm, her right arm, and this time she could see the welt that crossed it, and the blood that followed.

  She couldn’t dodge what she couldn’t see. And clearly, whatever attacked her could see her. The advantage in this space was not hers. The Arkon breathed fire; Bellusdeo did not. The fire didn’t appear to hit anything; even the stone that made up the basement—and stone was not generally proof against focused Dragon fire—failed to melt or char.

  And yet, the female Dragon’s sword hit something; Bellusdeo could sense what Kaylin couldn’t see.

  Yes. She is not you. See what you can see.

  I can’t—

  And her eyes opened.

  Her eyes, that was, if she’d had a hundred of them.

  * * *

  It was not like being trapped in the maelstrom that had greeted her on the Winding Path. For one long moment, she could see, and she could process everything. Every iteration of Bellusdeo, of the Arkon, of the rest of her companions, fit together, overlapping in a way that felt right and made sense. Each image was distinct; there was no blur.

  Yes, Kaylin. Gilbert’s voice. It was a whisper of sound, a thin thread; it belonged to no one in the room.

  I...cannot do more. It is here, it is in these layers, that you must find the aberration.

  You can’t?

  Silence. Bellusdeo’s sword flashed. The Arkon breathed again. Teela threw something—two dozen times—that looked like a spell. She could see Annarion and Mandoran; unlike every other person in the room, they had a certain solidity, a singular, uniform presence; their movements, their actions, were perfectly in line, perfectly synchronized, as if they existed across all possible slices of time in exactly the same way. There was no flickering; there was absolute uniformity. The only thing she couldn’t see in the room was herself.

  Mandoran turned toward her. His eyes widened as they met hers, and narrowed as he spoke—and she could hear his voice. She might not have been trapped in this strange state at all.

  “Move it, Kaylin!” He was armed with daggers; Annarion had a sword.

  So did their opponent, who might have been a ghost, the visual impression of his existence was so vague. She could see the pale, luminescent form of something that might once have been Barrani; it was amorphous, but sharply lit and strangely compelling. The only thing about him that appeared solid at all were his eyes. They were Barrani eyes, except in one regard: they had no whites. Where whites would have been, there was Shadow and the edge of chaos.

  “Kaylin!” Annarion’s sharp, clear voice.

  Kaylin turned once again to the three men, to the stones and to the center of the triangle they formed. Like Annarion and Mandoran, the men were sharp, singular; they did not have the range of motion or action that anyone else displayed. They didn’t sit or stand or slump—or bleed. She walked into the center of the triangle, hoping to find the answer to the problem there. It was just stone floor. It didn’t glow. It didn’t contain some sort of magical pillar.

  It did contain the faintest trace of a caster’s identifying sigil. She adjusted her vision, effortlessly looking out of different eyes. The sigil grew brighter and clearer as she worked her way through each viewpoint. Each eye offered a slice of event, a moment in time. She only had a hundred. She could have had a million. More.

  The sigil grew brighter, and brighter still. She stepped slightly back, glancing again at the three men. And she realized that there were not three men. The three she recognized were the strongest visual image—but superimposed on them were other faces. Bodies she hadn’t seen and didn’t recognize. This was not the first time men had been laid in this circle. Not the first time this had been attempted.

  But the other faces were made...of stone. They were somehow anchors for the person who had cast this long and complicated spell.

  Gilbert said, I cannot do what must be done without destroying everything this room contains. If I do what must be done, I will destroy you, this building, the entire mirror network.

  “And what about your rooms? Kattea?” Kaylin was afraid for the child.

  Severn, by remaining behind, had given her a singular gift: he had lessened the one fear he could lessen. It wasn’t a gift that he could have given so many years ago.

  And he said, You would have stayed with Kattea. But, Kaylin: you’re the one with the marks. I’m just...

  Severn.

  And he was.

  Chosen. Kaylin. She nodded and turned away. Or turned toward; there was no away in this room. Every eye saw something slightly different. Every eye opened on a layer of...time. The events that destroyed the city occurred here. She only needed to find the right time, the right moment.

  The eyes that were open would not close—not without help. Even this, she understood: they would not close without help. They had not closed the first time without help. She’d closed them then.

  She could close them now.

  It had taken hours, the last time. Gilbert could exist at any point, at any time—but Kaylin couldn’t, and she didn’t have hours. She frowned. She couldn’t see herself. She couldn’t see every iteration of herself that must exist. She was grateful to Gilbert then.

  As she stood above the trace of sigil, the proof of a cast spell, she closed the eyes that did not lead to the beginning of the spell. She closed the eyes in which the Barrani—for
he was that, or had started out that way—was nothing but a ghostly impression. She didn’t need to touch the eyes to do this—she knew how to close them, having done it once, before.

  She’d done it once so that he could function properly at her speed, in her time, with Kattea. She hadn’t realized then what she was doing, and knowing it now changed very little except the fact of it: she could close the eyes. She could narrow the view.

  She could find the moment in which the spell itself was taking shape and form. She didn’t need to understand the spell. She only needed to stop it. To unwind, rewind and find the right moment.

  “Mandoran!”

  He looked up, his eyes widening, and nodded. His leap took him across the room; his landing, less graceful, almost knocked Kaylin off her feet.

  Annarion moved to intercept; of the two, he was the better fighter, and if he carried the brunt of the battle, he didn’t carry it alone. But he could see, blindingly clearly, what the others could only barely follow.

  Kaylin understood how Bellusdeo had come to be injured. How Maggaron had almost lost his arm. How Sanabalis—ouch. She could see it all, as if each moment were captured in Records. And she could see the moment at which the three men in the circle lifted their heads, opened their mouths and spoke.

  Their voices were louder than the Arkon’s; they were almost on a level with angry Bellusdeo and angry Emperor. The edges of sound trailed from one eye to another as she followed it back, and back again, and froze.

  She was almost there now; almost at the moment of the spell’s culmination—and she suddenly realized it was not where she wanted to be. She wouldn’t survive it. She would be pulled from the here and now of Kaylin Neya into whatever plane awaited the Barrani Arcanist.

  She didn’t even understand how the Barrani Arcanist remained trapped, if barely, in these ones.

  Oh. Yes, she did. Gilbert.

  She needed to shift her view to a different eye. She needed to stop the linear backward progression—and she was running out of eyes.

  Yes. I am sorry, Kaylin. I borrow the power of the marks of the Chosen—but they are not infinite, as you are not infinite; I have tried to...isolate...the exact event in this location. This type of precision is not, was not, ever demanded of me. The Ancients wished to preserve the possibility of life—but the fact of life was of less concern.

  She nodded. He wasn’t offering a guarantee—but life didn’t. It offered chances.

  She hesitated; Mandoran turned his back toward her, bending slightly into his knees. Waiting and watching. “Can you see it?” she asked him. Her voice sounded wobbly and stretched.

  “Yes.” His didn’t.

  “But you can’t reach him?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  She didn’t ask how he could see the Arcanist without being able to interact with him—especially not when interact meant kill. She needed to close or at least narrow the remainder of Gilbert’s open eyes, because it was becoming harder and harder to focus. Harder to find the moment in time—because there didn’t seem to be one.

  Gilbert—

  “Kaylin!”

  She stumbled.

  “Kaylin.” Mandoran’s voice was beside her ear; one of his arms was under her arm, shoring her up.

  “How long? How long ago was it?”

  Mandoran’s answer made no sense. Literally. It did not resolve into syllables. She wanted to cry; she felt as if she was fumbling the only chance she was going to get, and the cost of that fumble, the cost of it—

  No. No. Think, damn it. Focus.

  She tried. She moved viewpoint, moved vantage; she looked through every eye that remained. The Arcanist would not resolve. The center of the triangle, which contained the very real nucleus of a magic that made her entire body scream in pain, would not solidify in any of Gilbert’s remaining open eyes.

  Breathe, Kaylin.

  Severn.

  Breathe. Gilbert couldn’t see what caused the break. He can’t see it now—it exists outside his sphere of influence.

  She knew this. She didn’t resent hearing it. Severn’s voice was calm, but not distant. She felt his concern, his worry—but there was no fear in it. Not like her fear.

  You can feel the magic. You can feel it strongly enough. You’re almost there. And he believed that she would get there; there was no doubt in his voice. She stood on that belief, because she had none of her own, and it helped. It gave her space to think. Again.

  The voices of the three men were becoming stronger. Stuttering between them, other voices joined in. Kaylin pulled herself up and away from Mandoran, which took a great deal of effort. She turned—and this took effort, as well. It was almost as if she was becoming fixed or frozen; as if time was hardening around her and anchoring her in place.

  And it wasn’t the right place. Not yet.

  The other voices drew her attention, because she couldn’t see who was speaking—if the staccato sounds could be called speech at all. She turned, stumbled again and this time righted herself with the nearest object that wasn’t Mandoran’s arm.

  It was stone.

  It was stone that felt warm; it was stone that was in motion, vibrating as if struck.

  It wasn’t stone at all.

  Across town, Evanton was attempting to use the stones in his Garden, or what remained of his Garden, as an anchor for...reality. She wondered if those stones were like these: these were almost like bells. Resonant, when struck, the sound growing louder before it died into stillness or the silence of the city—which was never truly silent.

  Yes, her familiar said quietly.

  The Garden’s stones resonated with the names of the elements.

  These stones didn’t. Couldn’t. But they spoke with the voices of...men. Of mortals—

  Not all.

  —of people like Kaylin, or Teela, or Bellusdeo, or Maggaron.

  Why these three?

  Three were needed, the familiar replied. This is not the Keeper’s Garden; the three were meant to anchor one small space for one brief moment.

  But why not immortals? Why not the Barrani whose name he owned?

  The Wild Elements agreed to the cage of the Keeper’s Garden. The three who are here chose to be here. Those whose name he might have known would almost certainly not.

  She turned then and threw her arms around the stone she’d used to shore up her weight. Her teeth rattled with the vibration she both absorbed and muffled.

  The light in the room shifted. Kaylin didn’t turn to look at the triangle’s center. But she didn’t need to turn: she had Gilbert’s eyes, and she could see everything.

  Chapter 29

  Mandoran’s eyes widened. He abandoned his daggers, abandoned his position and—to a lesser degree—abandoned Kaylin. Kaylin grimaced. She didn’t have Mandoran’s True Name, or the True Name of any of his cohort, but she could practically hear Teela scream at him. She knew why he was there.

  He threw himself around the second stone, just as Kaylin had thrown herself around the first one. Throughout, the men in the triangle stared straight ahead, as if they lacked solidity. As if they were simple illusions.

  But nothing was simple.

  The room shuddered again; the pain caused by magic increased. Kaylin clung tighter, not to still or muffle the vibrations, but to stop herself from screaming. She bit her lip, tucked her chin and cursed in slow, deliberate Leontine. It helped.

  There was something in the center of the triangular formation after all.

  She couldn’t tell Annarion to hug the bell. He wouldn’t survive it. She opened her mouth and closed it with a snap, but not before a single word managed to escape it. “Teela!”

  One of her oldest friends—in all senses of the word—heard her. Or maybe she heard Mandoran. She flickered as she crosse
d the floor; she didn’t close the gap in any consistent way. She ran; she walked; she vaulted; she edged around Annarion. All of her possible movements were traced across the air and across Gilbert’s remaining open eyes, because each of his eyes could see her, and she wasn’t exactly the same in any of them.

  But she was Teela in all of them, and she understood exactly what needed to be done.

  The Barrani Hawk reached the third stone, skirting the sides of the implied triangle, and threw her arms around it. Kaylin heard her grunt. She heard it clearly. But she was no longer looking at Teela. She was looking at the center of the room.

  A dense, almost sparkling haze was beginning to form there. It implied shape, form and solidity without possessing any of these things. It made Kaylin’s eyes ache.

  No, not her eyes. Gilbert’s eyes. Gilbert’s eyes hurt. Gilbert’s eyes watered.

  Kaylin opened the two she’d been born with. She couldn’t remember closing them, and it was very, very disorienting. Her two eyes saw less than any single eye of Gilbert—but they saw what they saw more clearly. Kaylin’s back was toward the other two stones, but she could see Bellusdeo, the Arkon, Annarion. Behind them, Maggaron, Sanabalis and Tain. She couldn’t tell if Sanabalis was still alive—not with her own eyes.

  Gilbert’s could see Sanabalis so clearly she might have been standing beside him—but Gilbert’s eyes couldn’t check a pulse. They couldn’t touch anything, but they could, apparently, feel pain—and they could transmit that feeling to Kaylin, who was already in enough of it.

  Grinding teeth, cursing in Leontine, she kept her hold on the stone, but shifted, turning her body, and therefore her head, her physical eyes—not Gilbert’s—toward the center of the triangle.

  Standing there was a Barrani Arcanist. He was striking because his hair—like the Consort’s—was a white, long spill from head to midthigh; it was not the usual Barrani black. His skin was pale; he looked almost alabaster. His lips, his cheeks, the contours of his closed eyelids were so still. He wore a circlet much like the Arcanist Evarrim’s. Kaylin couldn’t tell what color the gem had once been. Now? It was scorched, cracked. She had seen this happen once, to a ruby, in the circlet of a different Arcanist.