Evanton looked, for a moment, like any frustrated teacher. “You said that the Devourer belonged in the Garden.”
“I said it because the water said it. More or less.”
“And I believe I made clear that the water—or for that matter the fire—has never spoken to me in the way it chooses to speak to you. It speaks to me in a different fashion, but I am effectively its prison warden. I cannot therefore judge truth or even possibility in its words because I can’t hear them. I can, however, hear yours.”
Ybelline now lifted a hand, as if Evanton were indeed a teacher, and this was a classroom. It made her look younger.
Evanton nodded. “Castelord?”
“I believe, if you allowed it, that I could speak to the water, or the water to me, as Kaylin has done. I might also be able to bespeak the other elements in the Garden.”
“I’m not sure you understand the risk.”
Her smile was slight, but it was, momentarily, steel. “I have the entire Tha’alaan within me, Keeper. I am aware of any risks the elements impose.”
The Keeper—and he looked that, in his rich blue robes—raised a brow at her tone. To Kaylin’s surprise, he turned to her. “Private?”
“It’s not my Garden,” she said. Then, because she realized he wanted more, added, “I would trust her with my life. All of it. Even the ugliest parts.”
“And with the City?”
“With the world, if it came to that, Evanton.”
“Good. Because that is precisely what I will be doing.” He rose. “Lord Sanabalis. Arkon. If you desire to see more of the Garden, you are given leave to accompany us.”
They rose quickly for two elder statesmen. The Arkon didn’t even attempt to look dignified or bored.
Evanton was kind, in his fashion. He led them, first, to the shrine of water. The small pool lay in front of a small altar, a small stone shelf; candles burned in a candelabra on the top one. There were books here, all closed. The Arkon glanced at their spines, and his brows furrowed; he did not, however, attempt to touch any of them.
He might have been tempted, but the water rippled as they approached, and the air was utterly still. “Can it see us?” Ybelline asked Kaylin.
“I think so. Or if it doesn’t see, precisely, it’s aware that we’re now here.”
“I cannot hear it.” She sounded slightly disappointed.
“Oh, neither can I. But it has a way of making itself known.”
Evanton knelt by the pool’s edge, both of his knees compressing moss. He laid his hands in his lap, straightened his back, and waited. Minutes passed. The only person who moved at all was Kaylin; she’d never been good at sitting still when her life didn’t depend on it, and she fidgeted with the edges of her tabard, as if smoothing out invisible wrinkles.
But she didn’t wait long; the ripples across the face of the pond grew stronger, as if they wanted to be waves but hadn’t the room. No water escaped; not even a drop of it touched Evanton’s knees as the truncated waves grew stronger. Nor did Evanton move.
Kaylin did. She came to stand beside him, taking care not to step on the edges of his robes. Lifting her face, she spoke a single word. A single long word. Sanabalis said, “You’ve learned the name of water.”
“Maybe if we tried to drown the candle instead of lighting it,” Kaylin replied, grimacing, “I’d have more luck.” The water rose in a slender column, its outer edges constantly turning and furling; it moved faster, and faster, until it seemed as if the water itself must spin out, revealing what lay at its heart.
It did, but it splashed nothing, and what was left at its heart was a woman, transparent the way water in clear glass is. But the form it took was not familiar to Kaylin, who had seen the water take similar shape once before. Then, it had been the body and face of a young girl with bruised eyes. Now?
A woman in her prime—the way the Barrani Consort was in her prime. She was taller than Severn. Her eyes were clear, her cheekbones high, her chin tapered; her hair—such as it was—was long, and fell like a twisting drape. She wore no other clothing, and no crown, and needed neither.
They waited for her to speak; she didn’t. Instead, tendrils of hair rose, like longer and clearer versions of familiar antennae. They drifted out, one at a time, toward the group.
Ybelline didn’t hesitate; she reached out—with a hand—and touched one. It wrapped itself around both palm and wrist, as if anchoring itself to the castelord. Ybelline stiffened and paled, but did not otherwise move.
Severn accepted what the Tha’alani had accepted; he also reached out and touched the water. One by one, they all did, until only Kaylin remained. There was no strand for her. She waited, glancing at her companions, all now anchored to the Elemental Water; no final strand was forthcoming. She stood alone in the small grove, facing the water.
“What about me?” she finally said.
No one looked toward her, and no one answered, not even the water, whose gaze was as dark and deep as the depths of the still pool always were. Kaylin was no good at waiting unless she had no choice. She tried not to resent her exclusion, and gave up; the resentment made no difference either way.
But after a few moments, the water closed her eyes.
Evanton opened his in the same moment, and Kaylin found herself relaxing as the rigid lines of his face lapsed into an odd expression. He rose slowly, and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands, much as Grethan had done less than an hour ago.
“How many years have I tended this Garden?” he asked, as he turned to fully meet Kaylin’s gaze. “And it still amazes me. It still awes.” He shook his head. The water then released Sanabalis and the Arkon; it also released Severn. It held Ybelline, but it shifted the way it held her, offering the Tha’alani Lord not tendrils of hair, but rather, both of her open palms.
Ybelline took them quickly in her own.
“Come,” Evanton told the others.
They seemed as awed by what they had seen—and what Kaylin had failed to see—as Evanton had been.
“Should I be doing anything?” Kaylin asked.
Evanton chuckled. “Oh, yes. But not, I fear, in the Garden. Not yet. Come.”
“I think,” Evanton told the two silent Dragons, “you know where we are to go next.”
“I think,” Lord Sanabalis replied, “it will be difficult to move the Arkon from this place.”
But the Arkon shook himself and turned; his eyes were a shade of white that looked like bright sunlight reflected on water. “I am not mortal,” he told Evanton, his voice hushed.
“And what I have seen, what I have heard, will never leave me. It will have roots in this world for as long as I live.
“I feel young again,” he added. “And there is very little in this world that can make me feel young.”
Evanton, replete with the majesty of his eternally clean and impressive Keeper’s robes said, with a perfectly straight face, “Can I interest you in a job?”
Since this was a Garden, no open fire raged in it. Kaylin seldom visited the fire shrine; like Ybelline, she was drawn to the peaceful depth of water. Fire burned in the heart of a bronze brazier, surrounded by flat stone tiles. Here, too, were stone benches in slight curves, which bounded the small area. There was also a shelf, with more books, and the candelabra. These candles, however, weren’t burning. She’d developed a slightly nervous twitch when confronted with unlit candles, and glanced briefly at Sanabalis to see if he noticed.
But he was now as silent and remote as the Arkon, as lost in whatever thoughts the Elemental Garden evoked. Things as mundane as classrooms, even classes devoted to arcane arts, had no place here. Thank the gods.
“The water,” Evanton said, “is inclined—at this place in its existence—toward the mortal. Fire by its essence is less tame. It is not, however, less approachable.” He hesitated, and then added, “If the fire offers to touch you, Corporal, it is best to gently—and respectfully—decline.
“Are you ready?”
&nbs
p; “I am ready,” the Arkon said. He smiled, and rose—for he had momentarily taken a seat. “Lord Sanabalis?”
“I think I will leave you the fire,” was the quiet reply. “If I understand what is necessary.”
The Arkon nodded. He approached the brazier, and came to stand by Evanton’s side. “Private?”
She approached more cautiously. But to Evanton, she said, “It won’t burn what it doesn’t want to burn.”
“No. But what it desires at any given time is not simple, and not to be easily trusted. It means no malice. It is what it is.” He glanced at the Arkon. “And Dragons? In youth, they are bathed in fire.”
Evanton lifted his arms slowly, holding his palms out toward the fire as if it were winter and he needed the warmth. But the Arkon gently touched his sleeves, and when Evanton looked to the side, the Arkon said, “Let me.” And then, as if aware of the importance of what he asked, he added, “Please.”
Evanton frowned, but withdrew his hands.
“Keeper,” the Dragon Lord said, “I would give you my name, if it would ease you.”
“I could not learn it all in a day, and I do not think we have even that,” Evanton replied. But he answered quietly, and without any of his usual edge. He also spoke High Barrani. “I will trust you here, Arkon.”
The Arkon now lifted his hands, as Evanton had done, but he held them palm up, not palm out, and he said, “You may wish to cover your ears.”
Evanton grimaced, but did as bid; so did Kaylin. Severn, however, had some dignity to lose; he remained standing, his hands loosely behind his back, as the Dragon roared.
Kaylin saw the words forming in the air above his hands. She’d seen similar words before, and understood that he’d chosen to speak the oldest of tongues known to the living: the tongue of the Ancients. It was said that there could be no misunderstanding in that language; Kaylin wasn’t sure she believed it. No other language she knew was proof against the history and context of different people’s interpretations.
Then again, this language was used by gods. Or what passed for gods. Maybe they were somehow like the Tha’alani: their understanding of each other encompassed far more than simple words. It was an understanding that eluded Kaylin, born mortal, and raised not to glory or magic or power, but to bitter winter and imminent starvation.
She felt none of the Arkon’s awe. But she felt his momentary majesty; he looked like the distant face of the high, stone Aeries. The runes that floated above his palms were the color of fire: bright red, orange, yellow, with hearts of pure white. He held them; they were tethered to his booming, deafening voice.
“The name of fire,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Sanabalis said. It figured. Normal speech would have been drowned out by the Dragon words, but Dragons—who were not by any stretch of experience normal, as they proved time and again—apparently didn’t have the usual hearing difficulties. “Watch this, and learn, Kaylin. The Arkon was a master long before I began my studies in earnest, and it has been many, many years since he has chosen to practice the whole of his art.”
The fire came, then. It didn’t overflow the brazier; instead, it transformed it. Where a small stone circle had surrounded it, there was now the barren, blackened rock of a blasted plain, and the heat beneath the soles of Kaylin’s boots was almost blistering. She turned instantly to Evanton, but Evanton didn’t seem alarmed; he had closed his eyes, as if he expected this.
In the center of the rock itself, fire rose in a plume, unfolding as if it were a peacock’s fan, but in reds and golds and oranges. It took no mortal shape, no mortal visage, and it spoke in a crackle and hiss.
But it, too, spoke words, and they were kin to the words of the Arkon, if not their exact duplicate. She shouldn’t have understood it. But she did.
Turning to Severn, she found him watching her, and he shook his head, because he knew her well enough to know what she’d been about to ask him. No. He didn’t understand what either the Arkon or the fire were saying. Nor did he want to; he was content to wait, to observe, and to draw his own conclusions from whatever might happen at the finish of their odd conversation.
But whatever the outcome was, they weren’t there to witness it.
“This,” Evanton said, “is going to take a long time. With luck, they won’t have finished by the time it’s over.” He turned to Kaylin. “Private.”
She was watching the Arkon’s face. She watched his expression, begrudging him nothing. He wasn’t a child, but some element of a child’s unfettered joy transformed him.
“He won’t be able to do this again, will he?”
“Possibly never. It depends. Are you going to loiter here all day?” If he spoke almost deferential High Barrani to the Dragons, Kaylin clearly didn’t merit the effort.
Kaylin wasn’t surprised when he turned a corner, crossing a large outcropping of brown-gray rock that vanished as she followed. Severn and Sanabalis were a step behind. “Where are we going?” she asked him, as they stood once again in the Garden.
“To the shrine of air.”
She frowned. As far as she’d been able to see, there was no shrine to air; it moved freely through the Garden. Curious, she nodded, although it made no difference; she would have followed anyway. He took a small, stone path that wound its way between the small shrines that were otherwise visible: water and earth. The path led to a tree.
It wasn’t a small tree, and she wondered how she could have missed it every other time she’d visited. But the Garden’s geography was more fluid than even Castle Nightshade’s.
“Here,” Evanton told her, as he paused in front of a gnarled, knotty root. He pointed toward the trunk of the tree. “There are foot and handholds. I’m afraid we have to climb.”
Climbing, at least, she could do.
It wasn’t a short climb, and even Kaylin was tiring by the time they’d reached what seemed the midpoint of the trunk. Evanton, however, urged them to continue, and they did. The tree extended upward for as far as Kaylin could see with her head stretched back at right angles to the top of her neck.
“It’s there,” he said.
“I can’t see anything but branches.”
“You’re not looking in the right direction.”
“Story of my life,” she replied, and looked down again. This time, she followed his arm. He wasn’t, as it had first appeared, pointing to a random patch of the sky that existed between forked branches; he was pointing to what looked like a small patch of floating, almost transparent floor. Above it, more solid—but only barely—was a telltale altar and a very small shelf.
Below it, however, there was nothing familiar. Like, say, stairs. Or foundations. Kaylin turned to stare at him. “There doesn’t also happen to be an invisible bridge from here to there?”
He frowned. Turned to Sanabalis. “She is observant, but I assume she’s hell in a classroom.”
“She is not generally known for either her patience or her humility,” Sanabalis replied. “But I have had worse.”
“Did they survive?”
“Not all of them, no.”
“Ah, well. Too much to hope for.”
Severn was chuckling. “I assume,” he said to Evanton, “that we’re to jump?”
“Unless you can fly. The branches here are more than strong enough to bear our weight.” He added, to Kaylin, “There’s a reason you’ve never been to the shrine of air. All joking aside, it’s an unpleasant climb, and my usual method of visiting doesn’t always agree well with others.”
“Meaning?”
“They tend to fall.” He began to edge his way along the branch, and when he reached the midpoint, he jumped off. Unlike the Dragons, he didn’t pretend at age; it wasn’t a particularly graceful or limber jump. But landing didn’t appear to break anything. Severn made the jump with ease, as did Kaylin; the landing itself was a lot softer than she’d expected, and she stumbled as the “ground” gave.
Sanabalis, however, glanced dubiously at both the shrine
and the branches that in theory led to its safety. “I fear that I will have some difficulty,” he said at last.
Evanton raised a brow. “How so?”
“I am unsure as to the solidity of the branches.”
Evanton snorted. It was a Draconian snort, but lacked smoke. “If you feel you can’t make the jump—”
The branch cracked beneath Sanabalis as he climbed out toward the platform.
“Oh. Right,” Evanton said, as it broke.
The branch listed, and Sanabalis fell. It was a long drop—one Kaylin could see most of, although much of the view was obscured by other branches. Which also snapped as he hit them.
Evanton gritted his teeth, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted down toward the direction Sanabalis had fallen. “Take the easy way up! You have my permission and this is not Imperial ground!”
Sanabalis roared in response. Even at this height, the sound was almost deafening. Five minutes later, he rose, but at a greater distance from the tree’s branches. His wingspan was longer than Tiamaris’s, and his color was a pale shade of gray that was almost silver in the sunlight. Or the light; Kaylin wasn’t entirely certain it was shed by sun.
“Hold there a moment. We’ll come to you,” Evanton said.
Kaylin was dubious, but kept her silence. Which was good; Evanton could be smug. The platform on which they were standing did, indeed, move. It moved evenly and slowly until it was inches from the end of the Dragon Lord’s jaw.
“This is as close as we get,” Evanton told him. “Can you fit yourself on the edge?”
“Is it necessary?”
“No.”
“Then, no. I suspect that none of the three of you would survive an accidental fall.”
“Two,” Evanton said.
“My apologies, Keeper,” was the Dragon’s grave reply.
Cast in Chaos Page 34
