Cast in Deception

by Michelle Sagara

  “The Barrani who haven’t taken the Test of Name—and passed it—are mostly invisible in the High Halls. They’re not considered significant. They can be servants—and we do have those—or guards; they can be soldiers, if war demands soldiery. But they can’t be anything else. If they have ambition or pretension, they take the Test. Tain didn’t.”

  “So he’s considered insignificant.”

  “Yes. She’s hoping to change his mind,” he added. “She’s never considered him insignificant, and I think she’s afraid she’ll lose him.” He winced. Kaylin couldn’t hear Teela, and was very grateful for that fact at this particular moment.

  She didn’t know Tain as well as she knew Teela, but she knew him well enough by now. “He won’t listen.”

  “That’s what I told her. Does she believe me? No, of course not. She might believe you.”

  “I’m not stupid enough to try.”

  * * *

  Bellusdeo found Kaylin in the breakfast room three hours later. The Dragon, like Kaylin, preferred Kaylin’s work days to her days off, and probably for similar reasons. “What did Mandoran do this time?” she asked, drawing Kaylin’s attention from whatever it was she’d been looking at. Her hands, probably. Or the table. Helen had long since caused the plates to vanish, although technically cleaning up was Kaylin’s job.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re worried.”

  Kaylin nodded. “I was thinking of paying a visit to the High Halls.”

  Bellusdeo wrinkled her nose. “Take Severn with you.”

  “It’s not Hawk business. Not officially.”

  “Almost everything you do is Hawk business. You intend to visit the Consort?”

  “If she’ll see me. I have a hundred questions, and I think I have to whittle them down to the important ones.”

  “And those are?”

  “The ones I can ask without giving offense to anyone.”

  “In which case, you might as well stay home.” But the Dragon was smiling fondly. “I don’t suppose you could invite her to visit you here?”

  “I could—but I highly doubt she could accept. This isn’t exactly a safe space—” Helen cleared her throat, and Kaylin flushed. “Getting to Helen isn’t exactly safe for the Consort.”

  “Who would destroy her?” Bellusdeo asked. “Dragons might have, once, but the Dragons that would have are dead or asleep. And the Dragon that rules now would fight to the death to preserve her because she is, in part, of his hoard.”

  Kaylin flinched. “I’ll thank you to never ever say that where the Barrani—any of them—can hear you.” She pushed herself off her chair in order to pace the length of the large room. “I hate politics.”

  “Then you hate the living—of every race. Politics exist wherever the living congregate. What you call politics in the comfort of your own home are the things you feel are above you, beyond you. The Emperor is political. The High Lord is political. The Hawk Lord is political. What you fail to understand is that even within your office, politics happen. You call it something else—but at base, it is not that different. The reach of the powerful is greater, therefore the effects of their gambits are both more visible and less easily affected.”

  “Office politics don’t get people killed.”

  “No, with the possible exception of Teela.”

  “That wasn’t office politics—that was High Court politics.”

  “But office politics can get people dismissed. And Hawks—like any other living beings—need food and shelter.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I listen. I talk, but mostly, I listen. I look for the rules of the game being played, because any game requires a winner. And I don’t play. There is nothing, here, for me to win, and very little to lose.”

  “But not nothing.”

  Bellusdeo exhaled. “I would almost suggest you move out for a month or two, if I thought you could. But Helen would not be happy, and I have no wish to hurt her. Teela personally chose the Barrani Hawks. One of them attempted to assassinate her. If she is not foolish enough to trust Barrani, she desires what she once built with her cohort: trust.”

  Bellusdeo held up a hand as Kaylin opened her mouth. “The Barrani Hawks are not Lords of the High Court. They do not have power, and lack a Barrani measure of wealth. Teela’s personal power has been enough, in the past, to protect them. She did not anticipate the necessity of demonstrations of that personal power to those who might consider becoming her opponents; she has been secure in her power for too long. Such necessary demonstrations will be neither peaceful nor entirely safe.”

  “For me.”

  “For you.”

  7

  Kaylin woke to the sound of shouting. Some of it was in Elantran. Some of it was in Dragon. The rest was more or less Barrani. The small dragon was pretty much trying to put his claws up her left nostril, and his squawks, while quieter than real Dragon roars, were much closer to her ears.

  She rolled out of bed, noted that she had not grabbed the dagger she kept under her pillow, and considered this—more or less—progress.

  “It wouldn’t help,” Helen said. “It is not morning by any standard definition. Would you care for light?”

  Her house did not wake her up in the middle of the night unless there was an emergency call from the midwives. Midwives did not enrage or terrify either Barrani or Dragons.

  “Where are they?” Kaylin asked, squinting as her eyes acclimatized themselves to bright light. She got dressed while the familiar circled her head, waiting for a place to land.

  “I am currently trying to keep Mandoran and Annarion calm, with lamentably little success. I did call for Teela.”

  “How?”

  “The mirror.” Helen disliked and distrusted the mirror network. The fact that she had used it made things much more dire.

  “Bellusdeo is roaring.”

  “She isn’t angry. She felt she needed to get the boys’ attention—and native Dragon certainly did that.”

  Kaylin headed to the door, her floors creaking comfortably beneath bare feet. At the door, she slid those feet into boots. She wasn’t certain what had happened, but if running or fighting were involved, bare feet wouldn’t be helpful. “What caused this, anyway?”

  “The cohort.”

  “The cohort’s not even here yet!”

  “No. But they are traveling by Hallionne and portal path, and...they seem to have encountered some difficulty.”

  Kaylin froze, hand on the doorknob. “Pardon?”

  “I believe you did hear me.”

  “But—” She was cut off by Dragon roar. “Did that bit involve fire?”

  “Yes, but it’s contained. Bellusdeo is trying to stop the boys from doing anything catastrophically hasty—and she has my absolute blessing. I would advise you to hurry, on the other hand.”

  “Oh?”

  “Teela is almost at the door.”

  * * *

  Teela was. But so, to Kaylin’s surprise, was Tain. Their eyes were midnight blue, their expressions grim. In the distance Bellusdeo roared, but this time it had intelligible words in it.

  Teela made a beeline for the kitchen.

  “The boys are downstairs,” Helen explained. “I had to move them to the training rooms. Mandoran is not particularly happy with this.”

  “Is Bellusdeo with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s going on?” Kaylin demanded—of Tain.

  “You probably know as much as I do. There’s been some trouble with the cohort in the West March. The impressions left by the cohort are chaotic and unclear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am not certain, at this point, that they can communicate with Teela and the boys. At all.”

  Kaylin cursed. In Leontine.

 
* * *

  Barrani could run for longer than most mortals; they were taller than Kaylin and their legs had a greater reach. It took Kaylin five minutes to catch up to Tain, because the training rooms were down an intimidating spiral staircase that seemed to go on forever. Kaylin couldn’t see the floor. She did, however, see a closed door on the wall side of the descent.

  “They’re here?” Tain demanded of thin air.

  “Yes, dear,” Helen replied.

  What, a familiar voice demanded, has happened? It was Nightshade. Kaylin didn’t even fight him as she answered. I will be there soon. If Annarion reappears do not let him leave.

  I’m not his boss, and I’m not his jailer.

  I was not speaking to you. It took her a moment to understand that he was speaking to Helen. That moment, however, was spent watching Tain’s back as he opened a short, squat door. It was thick and old and scarred. She had been to rooms in Helen’s basement before, but this one, more than any other, reminded her of holding cells, except for the light.

  Bellusdeo and Maggaron stood in the room’s center; the Dragon’s eyes were orange red, and the Ascendant was armed. Not that weapons appeared to be necessary.

  There was no sunlight, no window into the external world. There were no obvious sources of illumination, and even had there been, Kaylin might not have noticed. What she noticed were the moving, swirling splashes of color that seemed to spread across the walls and the ceiling as if they were alive. It reminded her of Shadow, although each color was too bold, too definitive, otherwise. There was a conversation going on that Kaylin couldn’t hear, and this was its detritus.

  Tain appeared to see what she saw, but color wasn’t what he was looking for.

  “Teela!”

  To Helen, Kaylin said, in a much quieter voice, “Is this the room Teela entered?”

  And Helen said, “Yes.”

  Teela was nowhere in sight.

  “She is,” was Helen’s grim reply. “She’s with the boys. Those flashes of color you thought of as argument? She’s one of them.”

  * * *

  Tain stepped into the room, Kaylin practically hugging his back. He hadn’t drawn a weapon, but both of his hands were lifted. To Kaylin’s eye, everything was a blur of color, and none of that color was Teela. Or Mandoran or Annarion either, if it came to that. “Are they even here?” Kaylin demanded of Helen.

  “Yes.” As she spoke, some of that color shifted, becoming less of a flat, moving splash against stone as it did. Kaylin was suddenly reminded of Annarion in Castle Nightshade and was glad that she hadn’t bothered to eat much.

  “Guys,” she said, raising her voice to be heard. There wasn’t much sound in the room if she stopped to think about it, but something about the kaleidoscope of color implied shrieking. “There is no way you are going to the High Halls like this! There’s no way you could even enter a Hallionne in this shape or form!”

  The slowest of the racing colors recombined; they came together in a way that resembled Annarion, had he been sculpted by someone who wanted to suggest his form artistically, rather than render it realistically. Even his eyes—which were very blue—did not look solid or whole.

  “Your brother is coming to visit,” she told him. “And I’d really appreciate it if you’d give Teela back—Tain is about to explode.”

  * * *

  It took another five minutes before Annarion resembled his usual, breakfast-room self. Teela emerged more quickly, but her color was off. Kaylin would have been gray or green; Teela was simply pale. Her eyes were the same shade of midnight that Annarion’s were. Mandoran did not coalesce.

  Tain was at Teela’s side the minute her feet were solid—and it was her feet that took shape last. In all, it was disturbing; it was not something that Kaylin had seen Teela do before, and she had a very strong desire never to see it again.

  “Look, I appreciate that you guys had to learn how to talk to, and live in, a Hallionne. But Teela didn’t and she is not cut out for this. You’re guests here. I’m happy to have you. Mostly. But this has got to stop.”

  Mandoran lacked a mouth to reply.

  “No, he doesn’t, dear, but I don’t think I’ll repeat his answer.”

  Kaylin folded her arms. To Annarion she said, “Your brother will be here soon. Anything you can do to become more solid would probably be good.”

  “Oh great,” Mandoran said, speaking for the first time. “Tell him we don’t want visitors.”

  Kaylin’s arms tightened. “If this is what you do when you’re upset or worried, you’re never going to become Lords of the High Court. I doubt they can actually kill you—but they can make you all outcaste if you push it.”

  Bellusdeo dropped a hand on Kaylin’s left shoulder. Small and squawky curled his tail around her neck. He didn’t lift a wing to bat her face, and he didn’t press it over her eyes, either. If he could see Mandoran as he was, he didn’t feel it was necessary for Kaylin to see him, too.

  “If you’re all outcaste, you’ll never take that Test. You won’t make it past the front doors.”

  “They can try to stop us.” Mandoran’s disembodied voice again. The splashes of flat color across the room’s walls moved as he spoke. It was not comforting.

  “Kaylin,” Helen began.

  “They will try. But you’re not the people they’ll put pressure on first. Maybe you’ve got no friends and no living family. Maybe you’ve got family, and they don’t want to give your stuff back. But Teela has friends. She has allies. They’ll start there first, because they don’t have a choice. They’ve already started.

  “Teela may be part of your cohort, but she’s lived in the High Halls for centuries, on and off. She’s the wedge in the door. She went to the green, and she returned. She fought Dragons. She did it well enough that she has one of the three damn swords.

  “If they can kill her, they’re free to shut you all out.”

  Tain cleared his throat. Teela locked her hands behind her back, which was unusual. She really did look terrible.

  “This is the only place you can afford to do this—and it’s hard on Helen. If you could please pull yourself together, we can have the rest of this discussion.”

  “What rest?” Mandoran demanded, not really budging. Or not really staying still; the colors were practically vibrating.

  “Your cohort,” Kaylin snapped back.

  The rest of the colors bled from the walls back into the center of the room, as if they were liquid and someone had just pulled a plug. Mandoran stood three feet from Annarion, his arms folded in almost exactly the same way Kaylin’s were. His expression was grim, his eyes narrowed slits. “...Fine,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  It was Teela who turned to Kaylin. “We are not in contact with our...cohort, as you call them. Helen says the lack of communication is not by her choice; she doesn’t interfere with us.”

  “I contain the unintentional noise,” Helen added.

  “You can stop communication between people who are bound by True Names,” Kaylin pointed out, more for Teela’s benefit than Helen’s, since Helen already knew this.

  “Yes. But again, I do not interfere with the cohort in that fashion. I interfere—on occasion—on your behalf. You are not entirely guarded, and I believe there is some information that you have deliberately chosen not to divulge. I merely maintain some privacy of thought while you are within my boundaries. Teela is capable of doing so on her own.”

  “I notice you haven’t mentioned Mandoran or Annarion.”

  There was a small pause. “They are not, as you imagine, terribly private in their communications with their cohort. I don’t think they’re capable of it, but it is not necessary. For all intents and purposes, all of the cohort except Teela are like a much smaller Tha’alaan.”

  The Tha’alaan was not small. It was a living repository of the thoughts of
an entire race, dating back—if dating was the right word—to its creation.

  “So...the cohort sent one message and they’re gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they still alive?”

  Mandoran was looking slightly stretched. Annarion, however, was looking entirely like his usual self.

  Again, it was Teela who answered. “Yes. If Nightshade died, you would know. We know they are still alive. But that’s all we know.” She let the silence stretch again before she said, “I’ve lived most of my life without contact with my cohort.”

  “But...you knew they were alive.”

  “I knew they were not dead. But I knew, as well, that they were beyond my reach. I could not hear them. They could not hear me. I assume this was the Hallionne’s decision, but have never asked. I am not Tha’alani. I am Barrani. My life, my existence and my sanity are not predicated on my connection to the thoughts of others. There is a natural expectation of silence.

  “Annarion and Mandoran don’t have that. The centuries I spent in the natural silence of my interior thoughts, they spent in constant communication.” She hesitated, glanced at Annarion and Mandoran, and then continued. “I am not sure they would have remained sane, otherwise. Terrano was the most...adventurous...of all of us. I haven’t heard his thoughts since their return to us—but neither have they.”

  Terrano was the lone member of that long ago cohort who had had no desire to return to his kin. He had not reclaimed the name that had been his from just after his birth, and the names themselves were the binding that held the cohort together.

  “Are you afraid that he came back for them?”

  Mandoran snorted. “No. Look, he wanted—for us—what we wanted for ourselves. And we wanted, for him, what he wanted for himself. There’s no way he would come back, attack them, and carry them off. There’s a small chance that he approached them and attempted to convince them they’d be happier where he is now—but the rest of us would know.”

  “Fine. What did they see?”

  Silence.

  “Teela?” When Teela failed to answer, Kaylin turned to her House, figuratively speaking. “Helen.” Her voice was flat; there was no wheedling in it. “What did the boys see?”