Cast in Oblivion

by Michelle Sagara

  But for this moment, in the arms of this woman, she finally felt that the battle was over, and that she’d survived to come home.

  The ground continued its tremble, but the Consort didn’t appear to be concerned. “It’s the Tower,” she said softly as she released Kaylin and stepped back. She then changed her mind and linked her right arm with Kaylin’s left as she turned toward the closed door. “I believe you will find, when we exit this place, that there have been some architectural changes in the High Halls.” She was smiling.

  The door opened, swinging out, toward the silent observers.

  Hope squawked, and this one appeared to contain no words.

  A man—a Barrani man—stepped through the door frame into the cavern. Even as Kaylin watched, the seamless stone of the wall that contained the door spread to encompass the rest of the cavern; the uneven, rough stone gave way to something that looked architecturally worked, although the height of the ceiling continued to defy Kaylin’s vision; she couldn’t see it.

  There was no chasm between the Barrani man who had stepped through the door and the rest of the staging ground for the battle, evidence of which was also being unmade or remade beneath their feet. There was no bridge, because a bridge was no longer necessary.

  He looked around the room, craning his neck up, and up again; Kaylin thought he would fall over, but he righted himself—by adding an extra leg.

  Terrano, who had moved away as the Consort approached, snickered.

  The stranger looked down. “Yes,” he said, although no one had spoken. “Yes. I understand.” At this distance, his eyes should have been impossible to see. They weren’t. They were gold, and radiant, as if they were windows open to sunlight.

  “The Tower,” the Consort said. “The Tower is speaking to him now.” She didn’t ask Kaylin what she’d done; she seemed to understand it.

  He lost the extra leg as he walked toward the Consort. Ynpharion moved to stand between them, but she waved him away.

  But it wasn’t the Consort that the person who had been their Adversary sought. He approached Kaylin. He did not bow, but stood, almost stiffly, at attention. He didn’t blink, and the odd stiffness, the subtle errors in the presentation of expression, reminded Kaylin very much of Winston, brother to the Hallionne Bertolle in the West March.

  “Chosen.”

  She waited. Sadly, so did he. He was no doubt immortal. He had forever. He won. “What will you do now?”

  He smiled, or his eyes did; his face was almost grave. “I...am not certain. Once, I dreamed that I might do anything, were I free to make that choice. And now you have given me freedom of a kind, and I find myself...overwhelmed. There is a noise that I no longer hear, and an impulse that I am no longer forced to obey.”

  She hesitated, and then said, “What were you, before?”

  He stared at her as if he didn’t understand the question.

  He doesn’t, Hope squawked.

  “Where’s Spike?”

  As if speaking the name—admittedly not a very good name—a small, floating ball, with his namesake, metallic thorns, appeared to Kaylin’s right. It was buzzing and humming, with a series of clicks that implied speech.

  Do you trust him? Spike finally asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what he wants.”

  This appeared to confuse Spike, but the confusion was brief. It is too big a risk. Before she could speak, Spike said, He is not what you once were. Your Hawklord could have had you killed or jailed if you proved to be dangerous. You cannot do the same here. The chance you had, you failed to take.

  “Your servant does not appear to approve of your decision.” He then turned to the Consort. “I heard your song.”

  She smiled, her eyes still green.

  “You did not sing to me—but I heard it. It is an old, old song. Where did you learn it?”

  She shook her head.

  “I would hear it again.”

  “Yes,” was the serene reply. “You will. But not today, not this moment. Perhaps when the song was new, there were voices who could carry it without effort—but I am not what they were; I am not what you are. Perhaps you might sing it yourself.”

  He shook his head. “I cannot sing.” Kaylin couldn’t carry a tune to save her life—or anyone else’s, if it came to that. “Not all of your words will return to their resting place.”

  The Consort nodded. “Not while you live, no. But very few of those words are within you, and the rest have returned to enrich my kin, my kind. I echo the words of the Chosen. What will you do?”

  “The matrix of possible choices is almost paralyzing,” he replied. “And the ramifications of each possible decision extend before me for eternity. I am...hesitant.” His expression rippled as his brows drew together, as if pulled that way by the force of strong emotion. “I have desired, greatly, the freedom to choose. I had not understood the fear inherent in choice.

  “But I am in discussion with the forceress, and they tell me that not all choices cause this confusion.”

  “With the what?”

  “Ah, apologies, Chosen. With the Tower. They tell me that minor decisions do not cause the same difficulty, and have invited me to...eat.” He frowned again. “I have made clear that even acceptance of such an invitation requires me to spend time that I might otherwise use to engage in different activities.”

  “Everything takes time.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you have forever, right?”

  There was a longer pause, after which he said, “I have forever just as the Barrani have forever. But very few of those firstborn still walk this world. We are not immune to harm, not immune to destruction. Before now, it was not my own survival that was my chief concern; it could not be. Nor was it the survival of my environment. I did not choose; the choices were made for me.

  “Now... I understand why some seek to divest themselves of choice. It is...unsettling.”

  “Be careful what you wish for?”

  He failed to hear the question mark at the end of that sentence.

  “Yes,” he said, voice grave. “Care is required. But... I believe I shall speak with the forceress at length. I will not harm you. I will not harm the Lady’s many children.”

  “Are we to take your word for it?” someone asked. Evarrim, of course. But as it wasn’t a stupid question in any way, shape or form, Kaylin didn’t resent it. It was the question she expected to hear—a lot—about her own decision at the end.

  Death was safest. For the Barrani. For the city. It was not what he had chosen, and even had it been, it wasn’t what she had chosen. She knew it was a risk. A bigger gamble than the Hawklord had taken seven years ago in the Halls of Law. If the gamble didn’t pay off, the cost would be measured in lives—probably hundreds of lives. Or thousands. And those would fall on her shoulders.

  He will not kill, Spike said.

  “You can’t know that.”

  He has said he will not kill.

  “Look, Spike—”

  You do not understand the nature of your kind, or his. You feel he has lied for the entirety of his captivity.

  “Because, demonstrably, he has.”

  No, Chosen. That is the nature of choice. It is not his lies that caused death, but your own. What you chose to hear. What you chose to believe. What you chose to uphold and what you cast away. There is always an element of truth—it is belief and adherence that gives that element weight, or weightlessness.

  He says he will not harm either you or the Barrani. He will not harm them. But you understand—you must—that they cannot be prevented from harming themselves.

  “Because that’s the nature of choice. Consequences.”

  Spike thought this obvious enough that he didn’t answer.

  The Tower, inaudible to Kaylin, and she suspected almost everyone else in the
room, spoke to the man—or at least that’s what Kaylin assumed. He turned to Terrano. “The forceress has invited you to join us, if that is your desire.”

  Chapter 31

  Terrano accepted. Or vanished. Kaylin suspected the former, but couldn’t be certain. He’d come back for the cohort because they were, in every way but blood and name, his family. The family that he’d chosen, centuries ago, and possibly—given Barrani—the only family he trusted.

  He could no longer hear their voices. He could no longer bespeak them. But... Barrani had excellent memory, and he could remember every one of those many, many years. He had been apart from them for so little time in comparison, but that time had changed him.

  The cohort had lost no one. Sedarias surprised Kaylin; she allowed Kaylin to heal Allaron and Valliant. She did not allow Kaylin to touch her, but her wounds were largely superficial. It wasn’t a matter of trust. Well, no, it was, but she did allow Kaylin to examine the injuries before summarily rejecting any aid on her own behalf.

  Allaron was the most severely injured, and Kaylin was already tired. Allaron, however, had no qualms about allowing Kaylin to heal him—even if that exposed the entirety of his thoughts, or as much of it as Kaylin couldn’t avoid touching in the blend of power and two people who that power momentarily made one.

  “I’m used to it,” he said, because he, too, was aware of the elements of her past she couldn’t hide. “Sedarias trusts you. I mean, she trusts your intentions. And she’s used to people whose intentions she trusts who still manage to break things.” He referred to Terrano. “We don’t pretend, when we speak to each other. We can’t. We’re ourselves—whatever that is. Doesn’t matter if you know it. Doesn’t matter if you don’t. Sedarias had the worst childhood—if you can call it that. Annarion had the best. But there are shades in between.

  “We know that information can be death—ours, someone else’s. We’ve practically lived twelve lives, or at least the early parts. But home, for us, is each other, no matter where we happen to be.”

  “Except for Terrano.”

  He exhaled heavily. “Except for Terrano. She misses him,” he added, and Kaylin knew he was speaking of Sedarias.

  Evarrim had lost another ruby; his tiara now housed a blackened, cracked gem. He was burned, but not bleeding, and he would not allow Kaylin within five feet of him. His eyes remained a martial blue—but she couldn’t immediately recall them being any other color. Because the Consort did not appear distressed by the outcome, he did not immediately accuse her of negligence or incompetence.

  Any sign of the Ferals that had functioned as power conduits was gone. The room itself was no longer a cavern; it was a room worthy of the most important people the High Halls contained. There was a hint of sunlight that lightened the height of the ceiling, revealing it at last. It seemed, to Kaylin’s eye, to be sky.

  There was no blood on the floor; blood remained on clothing and skin. It was theirs, the Tower’s actions implied.

  “What happened to the other Arcanists?”

  “They are in holding cells,” the Consort replied, although she hadn’t asked it of the Consort, who, while green-eyed, had started to sag in a way that implied she felt as exhausted as Kaylin.

  “The High Halls will not be the High Halls we have known. One or two of the oldest of the lords might remember what they will become.” She closed her eyes. “I owe you a debt, Lord Kaylin.”

  “No.”

  The Consort smiled, although she didn’t open her eyes. “You are afraid, perhaps, that I, like the rest of my kin, consider obligation a terrible burden. Were you someone else, perhaps I would. But I understand that you would have done this, regardless. I understand some of what you have done, in a space the rest of us could not touch or perceive.

  “I should not speak of it; what is spoken aloud is remembered, and not always in a fashion that is to the speaker’s advantage. But you did not hear the Tower’s voice, in those final moments—and, Kaylin, I did.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It was wordless,” the Consort replied. “In any other individual, it might be considered a scream. But there was joy in it, and I can still feel the reverberations. The Tower has been isolated for too long. And in the Adversary—or whatever he might style himself to be in the future—he has found someone who can hear his voice. They are both old. I do not know how old; I could not clearly hear the Tower’s voice, and could not ask. But even the Hallionne have little regard for the passage of time as we mark it.” She turned to Lord Evarrim. “It is time we return,” she told him. “I would be upon my throne when the cohort emerges.”

  “How exactly do we emerge?” Mandoran asked in Elantran. Teela rolled her eyes.

  “I am not entirely certain,” the Consort replied. “This is...not what it has been for the entirety of my life.” She glanced up. “But I am certain there is a way out. More certain today than ever.”

  “And what happens,” Sedarias said in much more modulated High Barrani, “to the Test of Name? It exists, and has existed, for a reason.”

  “That is a subject that will be discussed by the Lords of the Court, but I believe it will change only in one regard: failure will not result in death. Not at the hands of anything but our own kind.”

  * * *

  The cohort and Tain remained in the grand and glorious hall that had replaced rough-hewn cavern. The rest of the occupants followed the Consort, with the exception of Nightshade. “I found a way in,” he said, a hint of amusement in the words. “I feel it safest to likewise find a way out. The Tower and its test has, until today, held no fear for me; the High Court and its environs is, by its own choice, more deadly.”

  The Consort bowed to him. She held that bow. Kaylin wondered—as she so often did—about the history between the two.

  “I have not seen you wield Meliannos for many a year; it has been long since we have stood on the same battlefield.”

  “And triumphed, yes.” The fieflord’s eyes were almost green, which was as green as they ever got. “This would not have been my choice of meeting place, but I believe the outcome has long been your desire.” He glanced at Kaylin, and then, to Kaylin’s surprise, he tendered her the bow he might have offered the Consort. “You have exceeded not expectation, but hope, Lord Kaylin.”

  And my brother has returned, materially unharmed.

  But not unchanged?

  Life, as my brother has discovered to his dismay, changes all of us in one way or another. I did not wish him to take this test.

  I didn’t, either, if we’re being honest.

  The Consort did. And we bow, as we must, to the Lady’s will. But this...this, neither of us expected. My brother is home, and he is alive. What he will make of that life, I do not know—but I intend to survive to watch, even in the lee of Ravellon. I, too, owe you a great debt. She heard only truth in the words. But she understood, now, that she had been the wild card of his plans and his hopes, that he had been looking toward the West March for far, far longer than she had been alive.

  Yes. My brother’s anger at your treatment at my hands is bitter; it stings. But I cannot completely regret it.

  There were other ways to ask, she told him, just a hint of exasperation coloring the words. But at the moment, I can’t, either. I think... I think Teela was happy to see you. Which would be a first.

  She cares for Annarion almost as much as I. It has been a comfort to me to know that she can move freely at Court. There is very little she would not do in defense of her ancient friends.

  Or her less ancient ones. A thought struck her. “If the price for failing the Test of Name isn’t death, does that mean that every Barrani will try it?”

  “In all likelihood, yes,” the Consort replied.

  “Won’t it get crowded?”

  “I do not know. The test serves a purpose while Ravellon exists. But many who might have pass
ed it did not choose to undergo it. I see changes in our future.” The changes that she saw didn’t shift the color of her eyes. “Come, Lord Kaylin. It is time.”

  Kaylin hesitated.

  “I do not think you need wait for Terrano.” This was the wrong thing to say in the hearing of any other member of the cohort.

  Mandoran said, “We’re waiting.”

  “You have not yet emerged as Lords of the Court, and he is your comrade. Waiting—or emerging—is, of course, your choice.” Which made it clear that Kaylin didn’t have the same option. “I do not know how long Terrano will be gone; you might wait a long while. But I’m sure the Tower will not let you starve.”

  * * *

  Three hours later, Kaylin was home. Teela and Severn accompanied her. Nightshade, however, did not, although she surprised herself by inviting him. He accepted Helen, and even appreciated the role she played in the protection of his brother. He was accustomed to sentient buildings—he lived in Castle Nightshade, after all. But he was not entirely comfortable within Helen’s walls, and he was clearly exhausted enough that containing his thoughts, hiding them from her, would require too much effort.

  None of this was said out loud, of course; all of it, however, was accessible to Kaylin through the bond of name. It was more than she usually felt or heard; she could imagine that were he to cross Helen’s boundary, Helen would hear far more.

  Helen’s Avatar was there to greet them at the door, although she had all the information she needed before they entered the house; her boundaries and control extended to the gates. Which were closed. She knew that the cohort had not accompanied them, but also knew that they were—relatively—safe. The High Court, with its politics and its general scheming, wasn’t safe unless compared to the Adversary. And even then, Kaylin thought she’d take the Adversary over the High Court’s political maneuvers any day.

  Especially now.

  Helen opened her arms and Kaylin walked into them, dropping her forehead to the Avatar’s shoulder. She mumbled.