Cast in Oblivion

by Michelle Sagara

  The doors opened. And smoldered.

  Teela was through them before anyone but Hope had any chance of catching up.

  * * *

  Severn did not fly through the air; he sprinted, weapons in hand. Hope, however, didn’t follow. “No,” the familiar said, as if he could read her thoughts while in this form. “He left you—all of you—to me. He is not as well armed as Teela; he is far better armed than any of the rest of you. You have the marks of the Chosen, but you have failed to understand them. Your mastery therefore cannot turn their power into weapons meant for this type of conflict.” As he spoke, he gestured, and his wings began to fold.

  A familiar sphere enveloped them all. “It would be best,” he continued, “not to tarry.”

  Kaylin, however, turned to the Consort, whose eyes were a darker shade of blue. Again. “Do the swords always do that?”

  “No, Lord Kaylin. They can, but there is a cost to the power and its use. It has been many, many years since I last saw that sword invoked.”

  Many indeed. It was not Ynpharion. Silent until now, Lord Nightshade finally joined the forefront of her thoughts. Did you think that the swords were entirely for show? Did you think them like medals or crowns, an indication of the importance of the person who wielded them?

  I thought they were meant to kill Dragons.

  They were. One could say they are. Dragons generally prefer to scorch everything from their superior advantage of height; if the swords could not somehow bring them down to earth, they would not be useful. But An’Teela is being reckless.

  What does the Consort mean about cost?

  Think, was his impatient reply. If you were given one of the three—Ah, no. If Severn was given one of the three, there is no possible way that he could invoke the blade’s power. I believe there is some chance you could—if you could wield a great sword. Or even a long sword.

  I can’t.

  No. But you are Chosen. If you could not effectively wield the weapon as a weapon, I believe you could invoke the...other abilities it contains. Most of my kin might claim the sword as the symbol of power it is—but they could not wield it as it was meant to be wielded. Teela earned that blade in the final war, because she could. You have never seen Teela wield that sword; you have, perhaps, seen her carry it. You will see her wield it today.

  You said that was reckless.

  Ah, a misunderstanding. It is reckless to invoke its power at this moment. There is very little chance that those powers will not be necessary today. An’Teela knows this. She is worried for her friends.

  She’s always worried. She worries about everything. And she bites your head off if you worry about her.

  I do not worry about Teela in the same fashion you—foolishly, in my opinion—do.

  No, Kaylin thought with a flash of insight. You’re worried about Annarion.

  Not, apparently, as worried as An’Teela is, given her use of the sword.

  He was lying. His words came to her as if the sentence were being spoken by multiple voices—but all of them were Nightshade’s. They overlapped and the dissonance in the meshed sound made Kaylin grind her teeth. This lie she could accept: he was worried about Annarion. He’d been worried about Annarion since his younger brother had arrived in Elantra.

  But this was different, felt different. Kaylin sucked in air so sharply the sound could have cut. Do not even think of coming here! You’re outcaste!

  Silence. In a slightly less amused tone, Nightshade said, You are becoming more sensitive to nuance, Lord Kaylin. Yes, I am outcaste. No, the High Halls is not safe for me. But if I understand anything that has happened—and I admit that your Helen defeats me—it is even less safe for Annarion.

  She looked through the doors that Teela had opened, staying within easy reach of the Consort as the Consort began to move. Hope remained with them, because the bubble that protected the Consort from magic was centered—as it always was—around him. Unlike Teela or Severn, the Consort did not sprint. Ynpharion stayed with the Consort, which was no surprise, but he was pale and indigo-eyed. When he stepped in front of her, she frowned.

  Kaylin, however, did not. She noted that Ynpharion didn’t step back, either, although a moment of silent rigidity implied there was some internal disagreement going on. The Consort could force him to obey—but that would cost them both, and given Hope’s presence and Spike’s absence, it was a price neither could afford to pay. Ynpharion stayed in front. Kaylin opened her mouth and snapped it shut. Nothing she could say in Ynpharion’s defense would help anyone, and if she said the wrong thing, it would just give the Consort a target for her growing fury.

  Since Shadow was here, a target already existed, and Kaylin wanted to keep it that way. She also didn’t want to feel sympathy for Ynpharion, and certainly didn’t want to come to his rescue.

  “Out of curiosity,” she said as they moved toward the open doors—or what remained of them, because as they approached, Kaylin could see scorching along the inner edges of both, “what happens to an outcaste lord who appears at the High Halls?”

  “Nothing,” the Consort replied, almost serene, “if he is not detected.”

  She knows you’re coming.

  I am not suicidal, Nightshade replied with just a glimmer of amusement. She has some sympathy for the reasons I pursued paths I was ordered not to pursue; in a like situation, she might have made the same choices. But it seems that I am not the only outsider who has chosen to visit in an entirely unconventional way. The humor vanished. Tell An’Teela that the danger is threefold.

  Will she even know what that means?

  Nightshade didn’t answer. Kaylin couldn’t see what he saw without effort and concentration—not without his help. His tone made clear that the time for such help was not now, but even if it hadn’t, she couldn’t concentrate on what he was seeing without losing track of what was in front of her face. She therefore didn’t know for certain where he was.

  As they cleared the door, she forgot about Nightshade.

  Chapter 20

  The air across the threshold was a different color. Fog, which Kaylin would have called gray, if gray had been the right word for something so livid, so visceral, seemed to stop at the doorway, rising to obscure the ceiling. In the High Halls, the ceilings were tall enough Kaylin had no idea how anyone cleaned them. But they were Barrani ceilings; they probably didn’t get dirty.

  She couldn’t see Teela. She couldn’t see Severn. She froze, her toes on the right side of the door. Hope stopped as she did; the Consort did likewise.

  Ynpharion didn’t. He walked into the fog, and it swallowed him.

  Ynpharion!

  I am here, he replied with obvious irritation.

  Can you even see anything?

  He stopped walking. She could almost feel the rigidity of his sudden stillness. Can you not?

  I see a lot of very dense, very ugly fog. It’s...almost sparkling. There are flecks of color in it that probably don’t belong in air that we can breathe. That’s not what you see?

  No.

  Do you see Teela? Or Severn?

  Silence. After a longer pause, he said, No.

  She lifted an arm to prevent the Consort from entering the room. Severn?

  Here. Busy.

  Sorry. Did you just cross the room beyond the door?

  Following Teela.

  No stairs? No other halls?

  No. She felt a sharp stab of pain across her right side, and shut up instantly. No one conversed while fighting for their lives.

  “Lord Kaylin?” the Consort said.

  “According to Severn, they went straight through the room. They didn’t turn a corner; they didn’t take any stairs. In theory, they’re at the back of the room itself. I can’t see the room.”

  “You can’t see it?”

  “I can see a very dense fog. I can’
t see Ynpharion, either; I don’t know how far into the room he walked, but there’s not even a hint of his back.” At this point, she might have poked Hope, but Hope wasn’t sitting on her shoulder, and at his current size, she had no desire to have him there. She still turned to him. “Can you see Spike?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the fog?”

  “That,” Hope replied, “is Spike.”

  * * *

  Kaylin exhaled. “Can you see Teela?”

  “Not easily, no. Before you ask, she is at the far end of what was once one of the internal rooms that this suite contained. Spike has dimmed visibility; it is an attempt to provide both cover and defense. It should not affect anyone but you.” He paused, and then added, “And those who might be in service to the Adversary below.”

  “I’m not in service to the Adversary, and I can’t see.”

  “Yes. That is unfortunate. Spike apologizes; your vision and sensory awareness are due to the fact that he is attached to you in a visceral and inseparable way. You are, in part, perceiving the effects of what he is doing in a way the rest of your companions would not. With the possible exception of the cohort.

  “It is an interference, however, that would diminish the effectiveness of beings who are not entirely tied to your plane of existence.”

  Kaylin turned to the Consort, who was waiting. “It’s safe,” she said, “to enter. But... I’d appreciate it if you stayed close enough that I can still see you.”

  * * *

  The room was a great room; the Consort explained that it was meant for public entertaining, inasmuch as the public was allowed into the interior. Smaller rooms could not contain the guards and aides that people of import brought with them as a matter of course.

  The Consort’s voice carried. The sounds of Teela and Severn fighting whatever it was they were fighting did not. But a sudden burst of light cleared some of the fog from the air—and at this point, Kaylin was worried that this would be a bad thing. For Spike.

  The floors in this room were carpeted or covered, but they were as uneven as the marble in the entryway. Kaylin wasn’t certain if this was due to Hope’s intervention, but she trusted the pitted floor to remain solid beneath their collective feet.

  And it did. But solidity did not apparently make much difference to the arms—or tentacles—that suddenly burst through it. Marble did not crack or shatter. Hope inhaled and exhaled as Kaylin’s knife passed through them.

  “I would advise you to close your eyes,” her familiar said. “I will guide you, but...these manifestations gain strength through your focus.”

  “What does that even mean?” Kaylin demanded as the tentacles froze and began to shrivel.

  “It means that if you believe in them,” the Consort said softly, “they will grow solid enough to destroy you. They are not real; they are illusions that are meant to invoke fear. The greater the fear, the greater the power they exert.” Her voice contained no fear at all.

  “You’ve seen these before?”

  “Yes, although infrequently. It is very, very unusual to see them encroach so early.”

  “Early?”

  “It is generally on the way to the prison that they manifest, if they manifest at all.” She sounded almost bored. Kaylin was certain she couldn’t be, and was reminded that Barrani were skilled liars.

  Kaylin, Severn said. Teela believes the Consort will now be safe if she approaches.

  How’s Teela?

  Her eyes are indigo, but narrow enough it’s hard to tell.

  And the cohort?

  I am not asking her about the cohort right now. She’s like a very thin, very brittle surface over a very terrible death—and anything could break it. If you still dislike spiders, this is probably not going to be your day.

  Shadow spiders?

  Larger, but yes, essentially. They had more eyes than legs, and one of them had mouths on the ends of its front feet. They’re all dead; they’ve dissolved. Spike is with us, but he’s grown in size and appears to have planted himself into the door frame.

  The doorways here are solid stone.

  I’m sure he’ll move once you arrive.

  * * *

  Severn was “fine,” for a value of fine that included an obvious, bleeding gash that had cut through thick cloth and thin leather, and left red on the edges of the openings. There was a similar gash across his left cheek. Teela was fine, and as there were no immediate, obvious, gushing wounds, that was as clear a warning to keep away as Teela was going to give. Severn’s description was wrong. Teela was bristling. Her eyes seemed to pulse with light.

  That is Kariannos, Nightshade said, the interior voice conveying a hush. It has been long since I have seen An’Teela take to the fields of battle. She was a wonder to behold in times past.

  She wasn’t a wonder to behold now; she was like a natural disaster. Nightshade found this amusing. Ynpharion did not. But the latter was far more impressed; he could not find words to give voice to the momentary awe he felt. Ynpharion, Kaylin remembered, was young in comparison to Nightshade or Teela. Young enough to miss the wars at their most intense.

  She found Dragons terrifying when they were in their draconic form, but her fear of the Barrani had always been more down to earth. She wondered if that would change today.

  “Spike,” Teela said, “is in the way.”

  “An’Teela.” The Consort’s voice was steady and chilly.

  Teela turned to face the Consort, naked blade in one hand. “Lady.” If the Consort’s voice was chilly, Teela’s was sepulchral. Kaylin took a step back.

  This did not improve the color of the Consort’s eyes. “The quarters are mine. And even if they have been compromised—and it appears they have—the permissions to enter reside with the High Lord or me. You were—and are—one of the finest lords the High Court has ever produced, but you are not High Lord, and you are not Consort.” The only sound in the room was the Consort’s voice; everyone else had pretty much stopped breathing for the duration.

  Teela did not put her sword up, but after a frigid pause, her expression shifted. Kaylin bit her lip to stop any trace of amusement from touching her face, because she was certain Sedarias was talking.

  Teela nodded. She didn’t bow, but given her rigidity, bowing would have caused her to break something. The Consort then turned to Kaylin.

  “Lord Kaylin,” she said, her eyes still martial blue, “please have Spike remove himself from the doorway.”

  * * *

  Spike caused cracks in the stone as he retracted the protrusions that had given him his name. He left significant holes behind as he compressed the bulk of his body into something small enough he could fit between Kaylin and the nearest wall.

  Severn fell in beside Ynpharion, of all people; Teela took the lead. The doorway, such as it was, opened into a hall with much shorter ceilings and no windows to speak of. There were torches; the torches flickered, suggesting that some sort of natural fire, rather than magic, provided the light here. The fog which had killed visibility was gone, and Spike had dwindled in size. He didn’t return to her hand—he wouldn’t have fit—but floated to the left as Hope took up position on her right.

  The Consort walked behind Severn and in front of Kaylin, her white robes luminescent in a way that suggested they carried their own light within the threads of the cloth that comprised them. Although none of her escorts had eyes in the backs of their heads, they stopped when the Consort stopped. The subtle movement of her robes stilled as she turned to look to her right. In theory, she examined a wall.

  Kaylin felt her skin burn as the Consort spoke a single word. It was not a word Kaylin recognized, but because she instinctively felt she should, she knew it was a True Word. The marks on her skin seemed to pulse in time to the syllables; the word wasn’t short. But the tingling that warned of magic didn’t normally happen when True
Words were spoken, not this way.

  “Door?” she asked when no one else spoke.

  “Yes,” the Consort replied. “And no.”

  Kaylin wilted. “Portal.”

  Teela stiffened. It wasn’t the stop whining or I will strangle you stiffness, either. “The cohort,” she said, as if she weren’t one of them, “have started the Tower’s test. They are no longer together.” Her words were so stiff you could bounce off them.

  “We have time, then,” the Consort said. She reached out, looking almost hesitant, and placed her left palm flat against the wall. Color spilled out from beneath her hand, spreading slowly and lazily to cover the whole of the wall. Kaylin had enough warning to step directly behind the Consort to offer physical support as the Consort’s legs began to tremble.

  “No,” Teela said. “The Tower’s test appears to be broken.”

  “The Tower’s test is different for everyone. Or it can be,” Kaylin added, a question causing the last syllables to rise.

  “Not in this fashion. What they hear now, they shouldn’t hear.” Teela had never spoken of her own test. None of them—with the exception of Kaylin—had. They had danced around the very end of that test. Kaylin frowned. “Is it possible,” she asked the Consort, “to get lost on the way to the Adversary?”

  “I do not know. I would have said no, but the cohort is capable of turning almost any carefully devised plan on its head. Is that what is happening?”

  “Possibly.” Teela exhaled, and some of the stiffness escaped her along with that long breath. “Terrano was having some difficulty.”