Cast in Flame

by Michelle Sagara

  Inhaling and exhaling for three breaths, she eased her shoulders down her back. “Helen!” she shouted, her voice—for the moment—as loud as Mandoran’s beneath the curved ceiling of the cavern. “Helen.” Her voice softened. “It’s time to wake up, now. We’re waiting. We need you.”

  * * *

  Light.

  * * *

  White erupted in a sphere that expanded outward to engulf the room, obliterating the cavern’s natural darkness. What light touched, it transformed. Words that Kaylin no longer recognized caught fire and retained it as the floor itself was remade, yard by yard.

  Kaylin forgave Mandoran for the damage he’d done to her ears, as she flattened her back against the wall. Words radiated golden light, but a trace of blue at their cores implied clear sky. Boundless, clear sky.

  She was holding her breath, and realized it only when she needed to exhale—or pass out. Beautiful, yes. But deadly.

  Everything unnecessary was gone: the scorched, empty spaces, the melted, deformed stone, and the outer edges of the pattern that had been composed entirely of one or the other. What was left was golden, shining stone. It looked molten, but she felt no heat.

  Kaylin could see no gaps in the placement of the words at Helen’s heart.

  She could no longer see the words she had chosen to place in the gaps that had existed, and she knew she could search for hours without locating even one of them. All but the one at the heart.

  That one was shining a clear, strange blue, ringed, by the gold shed by all the rest of the words. The gold continued to brighten; the stone floor began to rise, as if to lift that one blue rune toward the heights of the cavern.

  Kaylin pressed herself farther into the wall as the golden light changed the composition of the floor. No, she thought; the ceiling itself was changing, as well. Everything was.

  Kaylin understood that change was part of life. Good change, bad change—it was just life. Until the change was bad enough that there was no life left. She knew everything that now occurred was necessary for Helen.

  But if she couldn’t find a way out, she’d change with it. And die. Gold inched toward her feet as she watched, while pressing herself farther into the wall. Next time, she was keeping small and squawky with her. She could now see the entirety of the room. There was no door anywhere, and no convenient arches that at least hinted at exit. In a few minutes, it wouldn’t matter; if a door did open, she wouldn’t have time to reach it; there’d be no path.

  “Helen?”

  No answer. She wasn’t even certain that Helen could hear her, because she wasn’t certain that the Helen who was looking for someone to make a home for was the Helen that these words now described. Everything had changed.

  She was very surprised when the wall at her back fell over. She went with it, toppling out of the boundary encircled by stone and filled by words.

  “What,” Mandoran demanded, as she spilled across the floor, “did you think you were doing? No bloody wonder Teela always worries about you!”

  She blinked. The room she was in was much darker than the one she’d just involuntarily left. Not that she was complaining about the leaving. She sat up; there were splinters and shards of rock clinging to her legs and tunic.

  “Where’s the small dragon?” she asked.

  “He went off upstairs. I think.” Mandoran offered a hand up, and she took it. His hands were winter cold.

  “Mandoran—you’re bleeding.”

  He shrugged. “Nothing’s broken.”

  “You are also lying.”

  “Oh, that’s right—you’re a healer. I almost forgot. Teela says to tell you it’ll serve you right if you try to heal me.”

  “I don’t try to heal Barrani who aren’t dying. Well, or aren’t being transformed by chaos into something that will kill me. It just pisses them off.”

  Mandoran’s smile was a shadow of its usual, cheeky self. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking I could use some of the marks grafted onto my skin to heal Helen.”

  He snorted. “And water is wet. I’m not talking about that. Why were you standing in the center of the maelstrom? Are you an idiot?”

  “I didn’t expect that to happen.” In an effort to change the subject—her stupidity never being one of her favorites—she said, “What happened to the ancestor?”

  “You’ll have to ask Helen. Upstairs,” he added. He hadn’t let go of her hand.

  “I can stand. I can walk—or run—better without the anchor.”

  “He’s not doing it for your sake, dear,” Helen said. Her voice was still disembodied. But it sounded both stronger and younger, to Kaylin’s ear. “He’s doing it for his own. I tried to explain what Mandoran and his friend are.”

  “The painting analogy.”

  “Yes. Mandoran is now at the entrance to the long hall—he’s gone past the front rooms. He needs to find his way back.”

  “But I’m still looking at the outside of a building I can never enter.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he’s standing beside me.”

  “Yes. That’s the trouble with analogies; they only convey the general sense of the truth. The specifics—I’m sorry—are beyond you. And he knows this. Your Teela is terribly angry—at Mandoran, and at herself—and it will make things very, very difficult for her.”

  “I got it.” Kaylin shifted her grip on his ice-cold hand, entwining their fingers. “I won’t let him go until he’s back.” Even, she thought, if she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. “Did you get rid of tall and ugly?”

  “If you mean, is he dead, the answer is no. He is not, however, here.”

  “...Is he in the city?”

  “No, Kaylin. I understand that the city is important to you. He is not, at the moment, in your world. If he returns, it will not be the way he left.”

  She recognized the room she was standing in; it was the room that she’d left in order to reach Helen’s damaged core. There was no door, but a slab of rock that was approximately door-shaped now lay against the floor.

  “Do you know how to get back?” she asked Mandoran.

  “Same way we arrived.”

  “Great.”

  * * *

  As it happened, the stairs were pretty much where they’d left them, but they seemed more solid; they were certainly wider and the incline less steep. They were bound on both sides by wall, but the inner wall didn’t shrink in an attempt to pitch them off the stairs. They were also well lit, for which Kaylin was grateful; she’d left her only source of portable light in the big room.

  Leaving the stairs deposited them into a familiar, narrow closet. It was well lit this time round. So was the kitchen. Mandoran’s grip was tight enough, Kaylin’s fingers were turning purple. She didn’t let go. She wouldn’t, until she could dump him properly on Teela.

  In the light of the dining room—which is where they finally met up with everyone else, Mandoran’s arm was hanging at a very awkward angle. His left side was bleeding; he’d taken a wound that had probably barely missed his lungs.

  “Don’t give me that look. He put part of the door through me; it wasn’t a sword.”

  “Sharp door.”

  “It was moving quickly, with a lot of force.”

  The small dragon, who was in the dining room, as Mandoran had more or less stated, hurled himself toward Kaylin’s face, stopping short at her shoulders. He twined his tail around her neck and flopped across them. Kaylin didn’t have time for him at the moment.

  She saw the blood trickling out of the corner of Mandoran’s mouth. He didn’t appear to notice.

  Aside from Kaylin herself, everyone looked like they’d been in a very close fight; Mandoran’s wasn’t the only wound taken. “Are you back yet?” she asked him.
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  “I don’t know. Am I?”

  Kaylin looked up at Teela, and noted that she was also holding on to Annarion. She was doing it with less obvious force. Then again, she could snap a mess-hall table in half and look casual and calm while doing it. Kaylin had seen it happen.

  “No,” Teela said, obviously answering Kaylin’s question. “He’s not.”

  Severn’s forehead was gashed and bleeding.

  “His skull’s too thick to take anything but superficial damage from a glancing wound,” Teela informed her. She exhaled. “Well done, kitling.”

  Kaylin, however, shook her head. “The ancestor here wasn’t the only one.”

  “I know.”

  “The other one is outside of the High Halls.”

  “There is a lot more power in the High Halls than in Helen’s dining room.”

  “Yes—but the High Halls aren’t like the Towers. Or Helen.” She swallowed. “No one can leave the High Halls. There’s some kind of wall across every exit.”

  Teela’s eyes, which had shaded to their usual blue, instantly darkened.

  “The Dragon Court’s in the air; they’re fighting the ancestor now. But they can’t land; he does way more damage at close range.”

  “I am not going to ask how you know this.” She looked at her hand—or at the hand that Annarion clasped. Then she looked at Mandoran.

  “The Emperor’s there.”

  Teela cursed in quiet Leontine. “Has Bellusdeo been hurt?”

  “Yes.”

  Louder Leontine followed.

  “She’s alive. I think her injury’s equivalent to Mandoran’s—or it was. I don’t know what’s happening there now.”

  Ynpharion.

  Lord Kaylin.

  One down, one to go.

  “The Halls of Law have called out the full force. All reserves. The Swords and the Hawks are mobilizing.”

  Teela’s jaw dropped. Which was fair; Kaylin’s had done the same. “They can’t do anything but die!” She glared at Annarion and Mandoran. Annarion, whose arm wasn’t broken, lifted his free hand.

  “We’re fine. We’re not going to turn sideways and slip into the otherworld. We’re not going to transform into something wretched and unfamiliar.”

  “More wretched and more unfamiliar, at any rate,” Mandoran said. His Elantran was far smoother and far more natural than Annarion’s. Kaylin suspected this was all down to personality. “Helen?”

  Helen appeared at the far end of the dining room. “If they remain here, I believe I can contain them. You, however, don’t wish to stay.”

  “No.”

  “Kitling—”

  “Yes, there’s nothing I can do.” She poked the small dragon. “But I have friends. Hey, wake up. We need a bit of help here.”

  Squawk.

  “I mean it.”

  “You’ll want to leave by the Tower, I expect.”

  “If someone is cooperative, yes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “What, exactly, do you expect him to do?” Teela asked for the third time as they followed Helen up another endless set of stairs.

  “Fly.”

  “Yes. Fine. If you wanted him to fly to the High Halls—” she stopped. “We’re near the top.”

  Helen nodded. “You can hear the Dragons?”

  “Yes.”

  Kaylin couldn’t. But as she continued to climb, the voices that Teela could hear became audible for the merely mortal. The Dragons were roaring. Dragon roars never sounded like speech to Kaylin’s ears; up close they mostly sounded like pain.

  “I’m surprised the Emperor didn’t choose to wait until after the ancestor had entered the High Halls.”

  “I don’t think he could.”

  “Oh?”

  “Bellusdeo flew straight there.”

  “The small dragon, as you call him, could have flown straight there from the front door, which is much, much closer.”

  Kaylin said nothing.

  Severn, however, said, “Are you certain you want to attempt something new? The little guy looks exhausted.”

  “All the Swords and all the Hawks.”

  Helen opened the door at the end of the stairs, and night rushed in. She stepped past the staircase and into what Kaylin suspected was the only room at the tower’s height.

  * * *

  The walls curved; the room was circular. It reminded Kaylin of the Hawklord’s tower. This room was wider across and appeared, from the height of the walls, to be taller. It was hard to tell; the ceiling was, at the moment, nonexistent. Kaylin saw the folds of roof that implied aperture. “You opened this for Bellusdeo.”

  “Yes.”

  Kaylin plucked the small dragon off her shoulder. He rolled over and played dead in her hands.

  “Look—I don’t care if you have to eat my entire arm if you need the marks for power.” None of the miserable things had risen to offer themselves as food.

  “I, on the other hand, do,” Teela told him. “I’m going with her and I’m not in the mood to listen to her whine about blood loss and pain, neither of which she takes well.”

  Kaylin chose to ignore this. “We need to get there by the fastest direct route, and we need to be there now.” She set the small dragon on the ground. He squawked like an angry gull.

  Helen, after a pause, replied. Kaylin couldn’t understand a word that left her mouth. “If you understand a word either of them are saying,” she said to Teela, “I quit.”

  Teela chuckled. Her eyes were still a very dark blue, but her sense of humor hadn’t been extinguished. This was unusual. “Helen, you’re certain you can keep the boys occupied safely?”

  “I am certain I can prevent them from harming themselves. I can certainly prevent them from being harmed, now.” She smiled at Kaylin. “Thank you.”

  Kaylin was all for taking credit where it was due. But she had to feel that she’d earned it. She nudged the recalcitrant small dragon with her toe. He flopped over onto his belly. And complained. “I wouldn’t have known what to do without the help of the Consort—who’s currently under attack. I would never have reached your heart without Mandoran’s help; I probably wouldn’t have survived long enough to make a difference. Hey, you, cut it out,” she added, to the small dragon.

  “I’m beginning to think all the fuss about Sorcerous familiars was, as implied, childish story,” Teela told him.

  “Good public relations,” Kaylin countered. “...Or bad, as the case may be.” She knelt by the splayed-out familiar. “I know I wouldn’t have made it this far without you. Mandoran might not have survived without your help.

  “But Bellusdeo’s in trouble. And if the Halls of Law are fully mobilized, everyone I’ve practically grown up with is going to head to the High Halls and die there. I think you can help. If you want, you can leave me behind. But I need the ancestor to be dead or gone before the Swords and the Hawks hit that street.”

  “I’m not sure what you expect something that limp and exhausted to do, kitling. From what I’ve observed so far, all he does is add to the problem; he doesn’t exactly alleviate it.”

  Kaylin’s cajoling had gotten nowhere.

  Teela’s dismissal, apparently, was what was needed; the small, transparent rat lifted his neck. The rest of his body, however, hugged the cool stone of the floor. He hissed.

  Teela, not to be outdone, hissed back.

  Kaylin was too far from a wall to bash her head against it; she was close to Severn’s chest, and used that instead. He winced.

  “You broke a rib.” Her tone was all accusation.

  “I didn’t break a rib; a rib might be fractured.”

  “Fine. You let someone else break your rib.”

  “Jealous?” />
  Squawk. Squawk. SQUAWK.

  “What did you say to him, Teela?”

  Teela shrugged. “If you weren’t paying attention, that’s hardly my problem.” She took a step back as the tower floor began to shimmer. “How much weight can the floors here bear?” she asked Helen.

  It wasn’t a rhetorical question.

  “He’s not angry with me,” Helen replied.

  This answer made no sense; Kaylin wondered what other question she’d missed.

  “The amount of weight the floor will bear is irrelevant. Unless he is displeased, he will not strain the capacity of the floor. Even were these physical ruins, and structurally unsound, he would not strain them to breaking; the choice is his.”

  Squawk.

  “He is not in a terribly happy state of mind, on the other hand.” Helen also took a step back, toward the wall. “You may want to give him room,” she added, as the gentle glow that now imbued his form began to brighten. “Also, Corporal Handred, it is best if you avoid touching the floor.”

  Since Helen meant this in all seriousness, Kaylin kept her mouth shut. This was harder than it should have been, because the floor wasn’t the only thing being transformed.

  * * *

  The familiar was no longer a small dragon; the adjective small was fast becoming inaccurate, as well. As she watched, she realized that the floor wasn’t actually glowing; it was reflecting the light at the center of the translucent familiar. Which was odd, because the floor’s surface wasn’t reflective.

  “Is it not?” Helen asked.

  “Not to the rest of us. I’m including Teela in that.”

  She had watched transformations before, and they always made her vaguely uneasy. This one didn’t; the small dragon had become a thing of light; the light was bright enough that after a few seconds, it had no shape; she had to look away. She looked back as the radius of contained light grew, and grew again, becoming a perfectly balanced sphere on the tower floor.

  Helen had been right: the sphere itself continued to gain both size and height; in the end, only a person’s width of safe floor space remained between the walls and the light.