Cast in Flame (45 page)

“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.

“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.

“Do you know what he’s doing?” Severn asked her. He’d wound the weapon chain around his waist, and didn’t bother to arm himself; he did, however, take up position closest to the door. Teela had done the same.

Kaylin nodded. “I don’t know
how,
so don’t ask.”

It seemed particularly fitting that the sphere itself began to elongate; she recognized the shape it took. It was an egg. It was a
giant
egg.

“Do you think baby Dragons also come out of eggs this size?” she began.

“No. And before you ask, yes, I’ve seen one, and yes, it was during the war,” Teela replied.

The egg cracked. Kaylin was grateful. She knew that Teela had centuries upon centuries more experience with war—but she was cowardly enough to want to think of her role in that war as brave and heroic. She did not want to think of it as slaughter or baby-killing.

But she knew that Bellusdeo had value to the Emperor—to her
entire
race—because she was the last of the female Dragons. And she wasn’t the last because the rest had up and committed suicide.

Bellusdeo had flown
to
the High Halls. She was fighting to protect the Barrani there, regardless of what had occurred in the past. People
could
change. Kaylin had.

The crack in the egg travelled from its peak to the floor, joined by smaller cracks on its way down. Those cracks forked, and forked again, covering the surface until no more of the surface remained. At the center of what had once been egg, folded awkwardly into an egg shape, was the not-very-small dragon.

He stretched his wings out first, shaking their tips too damned close to Teela’s face. Teela had one of the best poker faces in the Halls; she didn’t even blink. She did curse him in loud, clear Leontine when he knocked her off her feet with a lazy swish of tail, though.

He brought his wings in, lifting and elongating his neck. End to end, there wasn’t enough room in the tower to contain him—not fully stretched. He snorted in Kaylin’s direction, but didn’t roar. She was grateful.

“We’ll be back,” Kaylin told Helen, as she climbed up the side of her familiar. “Ummm—it’s okay with you if we do come back?”