Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  “Please,” Kaylin said, grimacing, “don’t tell me that that’s Annarion.”

  “If he cared what mortals thought, he’d probably be offended,” Teela replied. She gave her hand a sharp tug, and the small dragon opened his jaw; to Kaylin’s surprise, Teela stumbled. Just how much force could jaws that small exert? He hadn’t bit into her. He had, on the other hand, added deeper runnels to Kaylin’s shoulders.

  “Teela,” Severn said. “Don’t. Just watch and wait.”

  It surprised them both; Severn wasn’t given to making commands. Surprise held Teela in place as the puddle on the floor began to rise. Kaylin wasn’t terribly surprised—although she was very disturbed—when the puddle developed eyes. Blue eyes.

  * * *

  Facial features followed as the puddle became a misshapen column; the eyes rose as the column did. A mouth formed beneath them, and a nose pulled itself out of what was now clearly otherworldly flesh. The patrician line of chin and cheekbones followed, as did ears to either side of the emerging face. Kaylin couldn’t help it; she winced.

  Teela, notably, did not. She might have watched flesh form out of random chaos puddles every day. Her arms hung by her sides, ending in loose fists.

  Annarion—and it was, finally, Annarion—staggered. He was naked. He was bald. The bald didn’t last; hair pushed itself out of the rounded dome of his head, like shoots of black grass; weight caused the hair to fall in a perfect drape around his shoulders. Clothing, however, didn’t follow. He staggered as if the whole of his physical weight had returned to him in a rush.

  Kaylin moved, then. The sphere moved with her, the light harsher and less forgiving. Annarion’s blue eyes widened; his lips parted. But the sphere rolled over him and came to a stop only when Kaylin did.

  And she did, because she was standing uncomfortably close to a naked male Barrani.

  “What did you do with your clothing?” Teela asked. It was a remarkably mundane question, given the circumstances.

  Annarion blinked rapidly. He then lifted his arms, turning his hands and flexing his fingers. He also flexed his toes. “Where is my brother?” His voice was hoarser or rougher than most Barrani voices.

  “In the Castle.”

  “What did he do to me?”

  Kaylin snorted. “He did nothing to you. As far as I can tell, you—”

  “Kitling.”

  But Kaylin shook her head. “You understand that you’re staying in one of the Towers that surround Ravellon, right?”

  Annarion nodded slowly.

  “The Towers are like—and unlike—the Hallionne. The Hallionne stop all their guests from fighting or killing each other if the guests are in the Hallionne’s domain. Towers don’t care what so-called guests do to each other. They do get defensive when they think their Lord is under attack.”

  “I did not attempt to kill my brother,” Annarion replied. His eyes had shifted into the darker spectrum of blue, and the fact that he was stark naked didn’t seem to affect his attitude at all.

  “No, you probably didn’t. I don’t think Nightshade considered you a threat; the Castle clearly didn’t agree with his assessment.” She turned toward the door they’d entered; it was gone. The floor beneath her feet was stone—and it was familiar stone. “Teela, are we in the hall again?”

  “Magic lessons, kitling,” Teela replied. She lifted a hand, and a harsh, sharp light flared from her palm. Kaylin closed her eyes, opened her mouth for a couple of Leontine words, and opened her eyes again.

  We found him.

  Yes.

  Can you take control of the Castle, now?

  The answer was longer in coming. There is a difficulty.

  Of course there was. All Kaylin had wanted out of the evening was to find a new place to live. A normal, slightly run-down apartment in a part of town that was relatively safe walking distance from work. Then again, all she’d wanted from the day job had been a normal, boring patrol through Elani, with the usual non-world-threatening irritations, Margot being chief among them. She should have known.

  Can you control enough of the Castle that you can find Annarion some clothing?

  The lack of clothing, Nightshade replied, with genuine amusement, is unlikely to cause him harm.

  It’s illegal.

  It is not illegal in Nightshade.

  Does the difficulty have something to do with the ancestors? she asked. The small dragon squawked, loudly, in her ear. Kaylin glared at him, and something beyond his lifted wings caught her attention: movement from down the hall.

  “Teela—”

  Teela’s magical light shifted in place. Instead of a broad glow, it now emitted a beam. She aimed it carefully down the hall. Standing in its center, between two stone walls that continued into darkness beyond it, was a figure.

  CHAPTER NINE

  In shape and form, he was a Barrani male. His skin was pale and flawless, his cheekbones high and pronounced; black, straight hair framed his face and fell past his shoulders toward the stone, blending with the robes he wore; at this distance, Kaylin thought them either black or a shade of blue that made no difference. He was of a height with Teela and Annarion.

  Teela was tense. Annarion was as well, but at least his discomfort made sense: he was naked, and part of that naked included unarmed.

  As the silent stranger continued to walk toward them, Kaylin frowned. There was something wrong with his eyes. They weren’t Barrani in anything but shape; they were dark and vaguely opalescent. They were Tara’s eyes.

  I think I see part of your problem, she said to Nightshade.

  Ah.

  I don’t suppose you’ve given the Castle a name?

  I have. It is Nightshade.

  Think of a better one, she replied. Or things are going to get really bloody confusing in the very near future. To Teela she said, “It’s an Avatar.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “I’m willing to bet on it.”

  “You’re willing to bet the sun won’t rise tomorrow; that’s hardly comforting.”

  Annarion had, in theory, spent much of the evening in conversation with the Castle. It obviously hadn’t been particularly pleasant, given the set of his jaw and the color of his eyes. She started to tell him that the stranger was very much like the Avatars of the Hallionne, but stopped. The Barrani didn’t care for the Hallionne when they were awake.

  And the Castle was now awake. Or at least sleepwalking.

  She reached up and poked the small dragon on her shoulder. He squawked.

  The stranger froze, his forehead creasing, his eyes narrowing. The change in expression was exaggerated; it almost seemed deliberate. Wilson and his various unnamed brothers had had a similar grasp of facial expressions.

  It was the only thing about the Avatar of Castle Nightshade that reminded Kaylin in any way of the Hallionne’s brothers. Where Wilson had been unclear on the concept of physical form, his experimentation—if disturbing, as limbs weren’t meant to shift in length or texture—had been almost playful. Nothing about the Avatar that approached them now seemed to imply the same curiosity, wonder, and innocence.

  Squawk.

  The stranger stopped. Kaylin almost laughed out loud when the avatar responded in kind, his voice thin and grating.

  On her shoulder, wings rose; claws tightened. Slender neck elongated as the small dragon lifted his head. Clearly what she heard from the Avatar—poor mimicry of small dragon—was not what he heard.

  The Avatar took three long steps and stopped at the outer edge of the sphere centered on Kaylin. His eyes reflected the light shed by the marks that comprised it, narrowing further.

  “Bearer of burdens,” he said. He spoke in Barrani—High Barrani. And he spoke to Kaylin.

  She wasn’t certain how to address him i
n response. She’d become accustomed to the word Chosen—although she often wanted to reply for what—but bearer of burdens was a new one. She was spared the need to carry her part of this conversation.

  “You are mortal?”

  Some instinct caused hesitation, which allowed the small dragon to reply instead.

  The stranger reached out to touch the edge of the sphere. His fingers sizzled. This was so not how Kaylin wanted to make a first impression.

  “Do not,” Teela said, in a cold, flat voice, “even think of dropping your protections.”

  Kaylin glanced at her. Her eyes were midnight. They didn’t reflect light the way the Avatar’s did. She glanced at Annarion— or his face, at any rate—and saw his eyes were the same color.

  She looked, again, at the Avatar. In the brighter light of her sphere, he was almost white, but his lips were a darker blush of color. He looked Barrani, to Kaylin, but she couldn’t have confused him with any other Barrani she’d ever met.

  Barrani really looked remarkably similar to one another; it was familiarity that made distinguishing the individuals possible—at least in Kaylin’s experience. She found their voices more distinct than many of their physical characteristics, but the being standing in front of her with slightly smoking fingers was an Avatar, and Avatar’s voices were unique.

  The Avatar did not attempt to touch the sphere again. “You did not call me,” he said, and turned to Annarion. His eyes shifted as Kaylin watched; she had seen Tara’s eyes do the same thing. They became Barrani eyes in both color and composition.

  “You did.”

  Annarion’s eyes didn’t change at all; they were about as dark as they could get. The stranger looked around at the stone of the halls and frowned. Kaylin tensed as the walls began to recede; she had some fear that the floor would do the same. Nor was she wrong—but the shield itself seemed to ignore simple things like gravity—if gravity in a sentient building was ever simple.

  She waited for the landscape to return in a different form—for trees to sprout or a different room to coalesce.

  “You may have heard me,” Annarion said, in slow and stiff High Barrani, “but it was not my intent to disturb your sleep.”

  “You did not disturb my sleep,” the Avatar replied. “My sleep was troubled. It is difficult to ignore the voices of those who should not be within my walls.”

  “The only things that shouldn’t be within your walls,” Kaylin interjected, “are Shadows.”

  A brow rose; he stared down a long, perfect nose at her as if she were an interesting, intelligent animal. “Oh? You claim to understand the whole of my imperative?” His smile was so lacking in warmth it seemed like a threat. “The burden you bear is light in comparison. And flexible.” He turned his attention to Annarion again. “You should not be here. You have disturbed my kin, and they seek you now.”

  His...kin.

  Nightshade.

  I am speaking with the Avatar, he replied. Just as you are. We are not having the same conversation.

  Is he going to try to kill Annarion?

  Silence.

  When the Castle talks about his kin, is he talking about the ancestors?

  That is my belief. I have not interacted with the Castle in this particular way before. It is...instructional.

  He’s not like Tara.

  No, Kaylin, he is not. I stand at the heart of the words that bind him. You stand at the heart of words that protect you from him. I do not believe there is anywhere else in the Castle that could now be considered safe.

  But...

  Yes?

  Andellen is in the Castle.

  Yes. And others of my men, as well. I do not know if you can find an exit. But if you can, take it. This is not the place for you.

  What will you do?

  I will continue my discussion with the Castle. The Castle understands that, on some visceral level, it accepted me as its Lord. Unless and until I die, I will remain Lord.

  She didn’t doubt him. But watching the Avatar, she wondered if his survival was guaranteed.

  “You are not one of the echoes,” the Avatar said to Annarion. “Nor are you one of my kin. What are you?”

  “He is,” Kaylin replied, when it became clear Annarion had no intention of doing so, “brother to your Lord.”

  The Avatar frowned. “I cannot hear you,” he told Annarion. “Not as I did before.” His attention refocused on Kaylin. “Bearer of burdens, he is not for you. Release him.”

  “I’m not holding him here. He’s here of his own volition.”

  “I can barely hear him at all, and he is my domain. Release him.”

  Kaylin glanced at the sphere made of words. “He’s free to leave if he so chooses. But he is also free to remain.”

  The small dragon squawked.

  The Avatar’s eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”

  Squawk.

  Eyes that now looked Barrani darkened.

  “Maybe,” Kaylin said to her companion, “now is not the time to antagonize him.”

  The Avatar opened his mouth on silence. But silence had texture; it had motion, it had temperature. Translucent wings rose and spread; claws dug in. Kaylin thought she felt a tail wrap itself around her throat. She didn’t need to understand small dragon squawk to know that the Avatar was dangerous.

  Severn unwound his weapon chain. He didn’t set it spinning; in the sphere, packed as they were, there was no room. But if he meant to fight, fighting while anchored to anyone was a hazard for everyone concerned. Everyone except the Avatar. Severn gripped a blade in either hand, but said, and did, nothing else.

  Teela didn’t bother to arm herself, which was a sign of how useful she thought weapons would be here. Her eyes couldn’t get bluer. She stepped partially in front of Annarion, as if in warning.

  Squawk.

  “Impossible.”

  Squawk squawk squawk.

  Light flooded the hall. It was sharp as a blade, but wider; it pierced the darkness beneath their feet, stretching toward walls that could no longer be seen by the merely mortal. What it touched, Kaylin couldn’t say, but she saw rock as it formed beneath her feet; it was a long way down.

  “Teela—beneath the Castle there’s a cavern. A series of tunnels. I think they’re similar to the tunnels beneath the Heart of the Green.”

  “Were they made the same way?” Teela asked.

  Kaylin glanced at Annarion and remembered the sudden, inexplicable storm in the heart of Evanton’s Garden. Mandoran had tried to speak with the elemental water, and the elemental water had not been pleased. Kaylin thought, at the time, that the water had been enraged—and that was probably true.

  But she thought, as she stood at the heart of a sphere that wouldn’t let her fall, that the water had also been afraid.

  Teela understood what Kaylin didn’t put into words; if they didn’t share the intimacy of the bond created by knowing a true name, they had almost a decade of lived-in experience together. Teela inhaled.

  The small dragon exhaled.

  Kaylin froze in near panic as a stream of smoke left his mouth in a conic plume. It wasn’t steam; it wasn’t the smoke that generally accompanied Dragon fire. It was opalescent, flecked with colors that caught and reflected golden light.

  Severn and Teela knew what the small dragon’s breath could do. Annarion probably knew as well, although he hadn’t been there to see it in person at any other time.

  “Do you honestly think to threaten me? Here? Do you not understand what I have become?”

  Trust a Barrani—an ancient, powerful, proto Barrani—to argue with something that had a brain the size of a walnut.

  Squawk.

  The Avatar lifted both arms; the air cracked, as if it were made of glass.

  “We�
�ll risk the water.” Teela’s voice was low and urgent.

  The sphere dropped. Everyone in it stiffened as gravity returned. Above their heads—inches above—the world exploded in something that felt like fire. It was white, and hot. Words—foreign and completely beyond her understanding—followed that fire. Kaylin didn’t need language to recognize fury.

  * * *

  The sphere dropped; the rock bed that Kaylin had glimpsed when she’d stood at the level of castle halls grew closer between eye blinks. But the sphere itself didn’t strike ground; it stopped abruptly a yard above impact, and hovered.

  “Is this the same?” Kaylin asked the rigid familiar sitting on her shoulder. “Is this the shield you conjured to save us when the Arcane bomb exploded?”

  The small dragon shook his head.

  “It’s not his shield,” Severn said quietly. “It’s yours.”

  “I can’t reliably light a candle.”

  Severn offered her a pure fief shrug. “I paid attention in all the Arcane arts classes taught to the Wolves. This isn’t a magic that the Imperial Order is capable of teaching.”

  “And lighting a candle is.”

  “Lighting a candle is a magic anyone who has magical power can learn. Apparently. It’s a base test of both ability and focus.”

  “You know this how?”

  He shrugged again. “Shadow Wolves are tested for a variety of aptitudes. If it helps, I couldn’t light the candle. I couldn’t,” he added, as Teela opened her mouth, “make a simple light, either.”

  “I’m going to demand that Sanabalis teach me the light trick. It’s got to be more useful than candles.”

  “It’s theoretically more difficult than candles.” He looked at the sphere. “Could you do this again, if necessary?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Take that as a no,” Teela helpfully told Severn. She had an arm around Annarion’s shoulder. “The first principle of magical competence is repeatability. You have magical power, which makes you dangerous. You can’t predictably use it, which makes you erratic. You don’t control the way the power is expressed, which makes you dangerously erratic. There’s a reason the Imperial Court wanted you dead when you first arrived on the scene.”