Cast in Deception

by Sagara, Michelle

  Alsanis laughed.

  “I come from the east,” the stranger said. “I was sent out to gather information. They will know that I am lost to them.”

  “Who sent you?” It was Kaylin who asked. Terrano was staring at the stranger, his forehead creased in a deepening frown, as if he couldn’t quite bring his gaze into focus. There was no enmity in it, no hostility.

  The stranger’s eyes lit up. Literally. The facets that made the eyes look insect-like began to flash, to spark; he lifted his hands, and his fingers once again did a strange, deliberate dance through air. But what had she expected? That he somehow dislodge a name, an identifier, something that Kaylin, as a Hawk, might hope for when questioning the witness to a crime? He was a Shadow.

  But he’d said he was free. Free, now.

  “Alsanis, what the hells is Shadow?” It was a question she’d asked before, sometimes in desperation, sometimes in fear, but she’d never asked it like this.

  There was no response. From out of the eyes of the stranger, bleeding into the air, came something that looked like multi-colored smoke, if smoke were liquid. That smoke dribbled in all directions, spreading and meshing until it resembled something solid. Kaylin tried to think of it as a Records display, because those changed from mirror to mirror. She mostly succeeded, until she stopped having to try.

  What she had expected to form was some envoy of Shadow; something that was a mishmash of body parts in the wrong places, and in the wrong quantities. Or a Dragon. A big black Dragon. Neither would have surprised her.

  What she got instead sucked all the air out of her lungs—and everyone else’s as well.

  It was a Barrani man. He wore Court robes and a very slender tiara; his eyes were Barrani blue, his skin flawless, his posture elegant, his expression forbidding.

  Lirienne shut down instantly. She could not hear his thoughts, could not feel any of his emotional reactions. Kaylin held his name, not the other way around. In theory, Kaylin could force her way in. But that would be costly for both of them.

  More costly, by far, for you. It was Nightshade. His interior voice was ice. She was almost surprised to hear from him, given she was in the Hallionne; Helen seldom allowed his voice to penetrate her barriers.

  You recognize him.

  Yes. So does your kyuthe, if I am not mistaken.

  He’s Barrani.

  Oh yes, Kaylin. He is Barrani, and a Lord of the High Court. If your Shadow is truly free, if it does not lie, there is a compromise in the structure of the High Court itself, and a failure in the tower.

  Bellusdeo did not recognize the man, but recognized the significance regardless, and her eyes were already almost red. She turned instantly to the Lord of the West March. He did not appear to notice.

  You are aware of the ways in which such a breach might occur.

  She nodded, although Nightshade wasn’t there to see it.

  “He sent me,” the Shadow said, his words almost superfluous.

  * * *

  Alsanis reacted first. His hands moved, all grace lost to urgency. But the stranger was looking, almost expectantly, at Kaylin.

  She struggled to find her voice; it came out thin. “When did he send you?”

  The concept of when clearly caused some difficulty, which wasn’t entirely a surprise. But he said, “I traveled directly when word reached him of your arrival in this place.”

  There was cacophony in her head, then. Ynpharion spoke. Nightshade spoke. Lirienne was silent, but it didn’t matter; the imperative, the concern, the anger, fell into her mind like a bad traffic accident on a busy, busy street. Guys! she shouted internally. Can you please just shut the hells up for a minute?

  “My arrival? Our arrival? Or Terrano’s arrival?” As she spoke, she pointed; she was aware that his sense of people as individuals might not be the same as hers, but his answer, if it could be extracted, was important.

  “Yours, Chosen.” He frowned. “Yours and the Dragon’s.”

  She needed a measure of time, now. She needed a way to ask how long ago was this and have it be both understood and answered.

  Alsanis spoke. She didn’t understand the words. The stranger, however, frowned. Beside the image of the Barrani Lord, a second image began to form; at first Kaylin thought he was adding color and setting to the former; sky appeared, and beneath it, something that might have been grass or weeds.

  Alsanis nodded, and Kaylin watched. Nothing changed, to her eye, except the color of the sky itself. She knew roughly when she’d left Elantra; she didn’t know exactly when she’d arrived at the Hallionne Orbaranne. She knew that she’d lost time trying to walk through a portal, but not how much time. But to her the sky was a night sky, shading into morning.

  Alsanis, however, saw more, or understood more. He frowned. “Lord Kaylin.”

  “Please translate,” she said, in High Barrani.

  He closed his eyes. Unlike the stranger, his eyes had lids. The silence was tense; seeds of fear and suspicion had taken root.

  Kaylin. It was Severn. Severn who almost never approached her this way. Severn who held her name. She realized, hearing his voice—the actual weight of it, the pronounced word, that she wanted him here. This was an investigation. If her partner were by her side, she’d feel like a Hawk, and not a floundering incompetent in dangerous, diplomatic waters.

  Next time you go to speak with Evanton, I’m going with you.

  She almost smiled. Have you been watching?

  She felt his nod. Since you landed. I lost you briefly—that was bad.

  Where?

  I’m going to guess it was when you heard Sedarias. Orbaranne didn’t shut me out. His internal voice changed tone. For the worse. We have a problem.

  We’ve got more than one. What’s yours?

  The Barrani High Court. No, some members of the Barrani High Court.

  Kaylin stared at the image of the Barrani Lord.

  Possibly. I wasn’t there in person when a delegation was sent to the Emperor. And when I say delegation, I mean war band.

  What?

  According to the delegation, a Dragon has attacked the stronghold of the Lord of the West March.

  Kaylin turned to stare at Lirienne.

  Words are being exchanged; at the moment, no one is apparently ash. But the Halls of Law are a mess; the Lords of Law have been closeted away; the Imperial Mages are on alert. Technically, the West March is outside of the Emperor’s domain.

  So...someone is saying Bellusdeo is attacking the West March. Kaylin folded her arms.

  She hasn’t been mentioned by name. Just color. They’re mobilizing a war band in the West March. They intend to either capture or kill her as an act of war.

  Kaylin’s Leontine was vehement, extended, and very, very rude. It caused the golden Dragon in question to raise both brows; clearly Mandoran had been teaching her.

  The Emperor is...not pleased.

  I’ve got the Lord of the West March here. And if he’s somehow responsible for this...

  Don’t do anything stupid. But...if you’re in the Hallionne with Bellusdeo, do not leave it. Not by the doors.

  She thought of the portal paths, which had swallowed Sedarias and the rest of the cohort.

  “Is there a problem?” Lord Barian asked.

  “Yes.” Kaylin folded her arms, trying to dig up High Barrani in place of her very inappropriate Leontine. Look—can you tell them it was a misunderstanding? My familiar kind of winged his way out here in very large Dragon form. Maybe—maybe they’re just confused.

  You don’t believe that.

  She didn’t. She wanted to, though. She really, really wanted to.

  Alsanis was watching her; the stranger was watching her. Bellusdeo was now watching the two Barrani lords; until Kaylin’s loud outburst of Leontine, she had been watching the stranger.


  “Lord Kaylin?” Lirienne said.

  “Just one minute.”

  Ynpharion.

  Lord Kaylin.

  Oh, cut the crap. I mean it. Just cut it. What in the hells is going on over there? What is the Consort doing? No, she thought, that was unfair. What is the High Lord doing? Bellusdeo is not attacking the West March in any way.

  The Lady is aware of that, was the cool reply.

  And the High Lord isn’t?

  The politics of the High Court are not entirely in the control of one person, was the even more frigid response. There have already been upheavals due to the simple existence of your friends. The Consort’s planned visit to your domicile was an attempt to allay the fears that are the source of those upheavals. There was a very faint—and extremely unfair—hint of criticism in his reply. The Lady bids me tell you that the High Lord was not a member of the delegation sent to the Imperial Palace.

  But he didn’t forbid it.

  It is my suspicion—and the Lady has not confirmed it—that he did not know.

  Leontine was becoming her new best language.

  “While rudimentary exposure to foreign languages might, at another time, be informative, I believe this is not that time,” the Lord of the West March said.

  “Fine.” The single word was Elantran. It was followed by more of the same, and Kaylin considered it a triumph that she did not sprinkle the whole with Leontine additions. “Apparently, a Barrani war band got together and entered the Imperial Palace.”

  Silence.

  “They informed the Emperor that Lord Bellusdeo—no, sorry, a ‘gold Dragon’—had attacked the West March. A war band is apparently being gathered in the West March as we speak with the intent to either capture or kill the hostile intruder.”

  Lord Barian and the Lord of the West March exchanged a glance that could have ignited large bonfires. Neither spoke.

  Kaylin then turned to the Hallionne. “If we don’t accept your hospitality—”

  “I understand, Lord Kaylin.” The Avatar turned to Lord Bellusdeo. “While you are guest within my boundaries, no harm will come to you.”

  Only, Kaylin thought bitterly, if she remained. And they couldn’t remain here forever.

  Ynpharion continued. The Lady says the information arrived upon your arrival in the West March. It does not coincide with your arrival in the Hallionne Orbaranne.

  Well, that was something. On the one hand, Kaylin was glad, because had it gone the other way, it would have left only two obvious suspects: Lirienne and the Hallionne herself. On the other hand, suspects were littered everywhere in the West March, and narrowing it down was going to take a lot of work, work that her lack of experience with both the customs of the West March and its general terrain would make extremely difficult.

  Add to that the reason they’d been sent here was to find Sedarias...

  I do not believe that was the water’s intent, Severn said. She reached for the words.

  You spoke to Evanton.

  Evanton sent Grethan to Helen; Helen used the mirror to contact me. I was, he added, with a hint of wryness, already on the way to Evanton’s.

  Which meant Evanton had no apprentice to snarl at.

  The wryness deepened, becoming warmth. Evanton’s concern at the time was the outlay of power the water used. That, and the fact that water used it in the fashion it did. It is his opinion that, had you not been in the doorway, the water could not have transported you; the enclosure of the garden would have prevented it. But the water—and he finds it difficult to commune with it at all at the moment, although he has been trying—acted entirely on its own, without any offered warning.

  Ybelline said the same thing, but differently.

  Evanton probably had better luck. The water didn’t send you specifically to find the cohort.

  But—

  She sent you because there was something in the fabric of the physical world that was, that felt, entirely wrong. She sent you because her own interactions with the world are limited by location. It’s likely, in my opinion, that what the water sensed on the periphery of her awareness is the reason the cohort are gone, but the cohort disappearing is ancillary to the water.

  Ummm.

  Yes?

  The fire? The earth? The air? Do they not sense the same thing?

  She felt his smile again; felt appreciation or approval travel through it. Yes, but to a lesser extent. The water’s interaction with the living has grown stronger because of the Tha’alani. But the earth, of the three remaining, was most disturbed.

  I don’t suppose any of them offered any pointers, any advice?

  Not precisely. I think they fear the Shadows. They did not use the word Ravellon; Evanton is attempting to interpret what they did say. What will you do?

  We can’t leave if the Barrani intend to kill Bellusdeo. I’m not at all sure they’d succeed, she added, but the attempt will enrage the Emperor. And to be fair, will probably enrage Bellusdeo as well. I don’t want the West March reduced to ash.

  Or the Barrani?

  I’m not sure I care what happens to the Barrani at this point. And I’m not even sure why you’re asking. You can guess.

  You want to leave by the portal paths.

  I want to examine the portal paths. Frankly, if the cohort could be somehow blown off them, I wouldn’t give much for our chances. And, she added morosely, we’ve got Terrano. If he’s anything at all like Mandoran and Annarion, he’ll have Shadow swarming around him. She stopped, then. I think he already did. He just wasn’t paying enough attention to what they were.

  Be careful. The Consort has left the High Halls.

  I told Ynpharion to tell her—Leontine left her mouth. I’m not sure we have the leisure to wait for her arrival.

  What choice do you have?

  She didn’t answer.

  * * *

  The stranger who was no longer enslaved did not evaporate or disappear. He remained standing in the Hallionne’s hall. When Kaylin pushed the familiar’s wing away from her eyes, she saw him as a diffuse, spiked ball. A floating one.

  “His function,” Alsanis said quietly, “is analogous to Records.”

  “Pardon?”

  “He was considered a historian, a receptacle of information. He was sent to regions in which others might have difficulty surviving; it is why his form is inexact. It extends into the world in which you live, but it does not reside entirely in that world.” He frowned. “Before the fall—those are his words—he...reported?...to—the word is librarian, I think. I am sorry. His mode of communication is almost archaic.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It was archaic before I was born.”

  “Born? Or before you became the Hallionne?”

  “The latter. He has served in Ravellon in a similar capacity. He has, until now, had no ability to breach the Tower barriers.”

  Bellusdeo seemed far more concerned with this statement than she had the information about the Barrani war band and their politics. “What changed?”

  “He was carried out,” Alsanis replied. His eyes had lost the appearance of living eyes as he spoke. “Someone entered Ravellon, bypassing the Tower defenses, and absorbed him as a passenger.”

  Kaylin’s hands became fists. “Let me guess. The Tower that was breached was in Candallar.”

  Alsanis, however, did not reply immediately. He spoke to the Shadow, and eventually turned back to Kaylin. “The name has no meaning to him.”

  Kaylin turned to the spiky, floating ball. “I don’t believe you.”

  “He does not understand.”

  “The Towers take the name of their lords.”

  “They do not,” the stranger said. She could hear his voice, even if he in theory had no mouth with which to speak. The screeching had diminished, although she continued to hear a faint
buzz. “They do not change. They are like this place. It is quiet here. It is not so quiet in Ravellon; a hundred thousand mouths speak in all places, all directions. I was sent to the border, the boundary, and I was told to accompany the one who would meet me there without absorbing his essential information.”

  Kaylin let that sink in for one long minute. “Fine. Tell me—show me—what you saw when you met the person there.” She folded her arms and waited. Nothing happened. It was Terrano who interrupted; the tenor of his voice rose and fell, but the words were not words that Kaylin understood.

  Clearly, the ball did.

  The image of the Barrani noble did not fade. The clothing he wore, however, transformed as they watched, as did the ground beneath his feet. When the transformation was complete, the Lord of the High Court resembled one of Nightshade’s thugs.

  Kaylin understood that this disguise would be necessary if the Lord wanted to head into the fiefs without drawing attention to himself. What she needed to know, however, was not the how, but the where.

  Instead of addressing the spiked ball, she turned to Terrano. “I need to see more of his surroundings. If he met the man on the borders of Ravellon, those borders are physical. I want to know what they looked like.”

  “If it was Shadow—”

  “The Barrani lord didn’t stay in the shadows, or Spike wouldn’t be here.”

  “Spike?” Terrano interrupted.

  “We have to call him something,” Kaylin replied, adding a fief shrug. Spike did not seem to notice. Or mind.

  “He does not mind,” Alsanis said. “But I am uncertain that he understands the purpose of the word or your version of an identifier.”

  Kaylin, responsible for the digression, cleared her throat. “Anyway. He walked through the streets of the city; he walked through the streets of a fief.”

  Terrano spoke again, and this time, the ball surrendered a detailed map. It took Kaylin a moment to realize that’s what it was; it was an amalgamation of the literal view of the street, with the wrong colors—too many, too spread out—and overlapping buildings. No, she thought, they weren’t overlapping, not exactly; it was as if each building had been viewed a hundred times, over a decade or two, and the composite of each viewing had been laid over each other.