Cast in Honor (The Chronicles of Elantra) (35 page)

To the familiar, she said,
Hide me
.

It is already done, but, Kaylin, be wary. What you face here is not a Feral or its distant, more powerful cousin.

She headed directly for the three men, who were—as Gilbert had said—not dead. Something whistled past her theoretically invisible cheek. She felt the sting of a cut and raised her hand; it came away bloody. She didn’t swear—she headed straight for the center of the triangular formation and stopped.

There were three stones where the three living men were standing. They existed in the same place as the men, although the men didn’t appear to be made of stone; the effect was disturbing. The men seemed to be breathing, but slowly, as if air was scarce. The stones appeared to be faintly pulsing in time to their labored breaths. Kaylin didn’t have time to examine them more carefully. Or at all; something struck her arm, her right arm, and this time she could see the welt that crossed it, and the blood that followed.

She couldn’t dodge what she couldn’t see. And clearly, whatever attacked her could see her. The advantage in this space was not hers. The Arkon breathed fire; Bellusdeo did not. The fire didn’t appear to hit anything; even the stone that made up the basement—and stone was not generally proof against focused Dragon fire—failed to melt or char.

And yet, the female Dragon’s sword hit something; Bellusdeo could sense what Kaylin couldn’t see.

Yes. She is not you. See what you can see.

I can’t—

And her eyes opened.

Her eyes, that was, if she’d had a hundred of them.

* * *

It was not like being trapped in the maelstrom that had greeted her on the Winding Path. For one long moment, she could see, and she could process
everything
. Every iteration of Bellusdeo, of the Arkon, of the rest of her companions, fit together, overlapping in a way that felt right and made
sense
. Each image was distinct; there was no blur.

Yes, Kaylin
. Gilbert’s voice. It was a whisper of sound, a thin thread; it belonged to no one in the room.

I...cannot do more. It is here, it is in these layers, that you must find the aberration.

You can’t?

Silence. Bellusdeo’s sword flashed. The Arkon breathed again. Teela threw something—two dozen times—that looked like a spell. She could see Annarion and Mandoran; unlike every other person in the room, they had a certain solidity, a singular, uniform presence; their movements, their actions, were perfectly in line, perfectly synchronized, as if they existed across all possible slices of time in exactly the same way. There was no flickering; there was absolute uniformity. The only thing she couldn’t see in the room was herself.

Mandoran turned toward her. His eyes widened as they met hers, and narrowed as he spoke—and she could
hear
his voice. She might not have been trapped in this strange state at all.

“Move it, Kaylin!” He was armed with daggers; Annarion had a sword.

So did their opponent, who might have been a ghost, the visual impression of his existence was so vague. She could see the pale, luminescent form of something that might once have been Barrani; it was amorphous, but sharply lit and strangely compelling. The only thing about him that appeared solid at all were his eyes. They were Barrani eyes, except in one regard: they had no whites. Where whites would have been, there was Shadow and the edge of chaos.

“Kaylin!” Annarion’s sharp, clear voice.

Kaylin turned once again to the three men, to the stones and to the center of the triangle they formed. Like Annarion and Mandoran, the men were sharp, singular; they did not have the range of motion or action that anyone else displayed. They didn’t sit or stand or slump—or bleed. She walked into the center of the triangle, hoping to find the answer to the problem there. It was just stone floor. It didn’t glow. It didn’t contain some sort of magical pillar.

It
did
contain the faintest trace of a caster’s identifying sigil. She adjusted her vision, effortlessly looking out of different eyes. The sigil grew brighter and clearer as she worked her way through each viewpoint. Each eye offered a slice of event, a moment in time. She only had a hundred. She could have had a million. More.

The sigil grew brighter, and brighter still. She stepped slightly back, glancing again at the three men. And she realized that there were not three men. The three she recognized were the strongest visual image—but superimposed on them were other faces. Bodies she hadn’t seen and didn’t recognize. This was not the first time men had been laid in this circle. Not the first time this had been attempted.

But the other faces were made...of stone. They were somehow anchors for the person who had cast this long and complicated spell.

Gilbert said,
I cannot do what must be done without destroying everything this room contains. If I do what must be done, I will destroy you, this building, the entire mirror network.

“And what about your rooms? Kattea?” Kaylin was afraid for the child.

Severn, by remaining behind, had given her a singular gift: he had lessened the one fear he
could
lessen. It wasn’t a gift that he could have given so many years ago.

And he said,
You would have stayed with Kattea. But, Kaylin: you’re the one with the marks. I’m just...

Severn.

And he was.

Chosen. Kaylin.
She nodded and turned away. Or turned toward; there was no away in this room. Every eye saw something slightly different. Every eye opened on a layer of...time. The events that destroyed the city occurred here. She only needed to find the right time, the right moment.

The eyes that were open would not close—not without help. Even this, she understood: they would not close without help. They had not closed the first time without help. She’d closed them then.

She could close them now.

It had taken hours, the last time. Gilbert could exist at any point, at any time—but Kaylin couldn’t, and she didn’t have hours. She frowned. She couldn’t see herself. She couldn’t see every iteration of herself that must exist. She was grateful to Gilbert then.

As she stood above the trace of sigil, the proof of a cast spell, she closed the eyes that did not lead to the beginning of the spell. She closed the eyes in which the Barrani—for he was that, or had started out that way—was nothing but a ghostly impression. She didn’t need to touch the eyes to do this—she knew how to close them, having done it once, before.

She’d done it once so that he could function properly at her speed, in her time, with Kattea. She hadn’t realized then what she was doing, and knowing it now changed very little except the fact of it: she could close the eyes. She could narrow the view.

She could find the moment in which the spell itself was taking shape and form. She didn’t need to understand the spell. She only needed to stop it. To unwind, rewind and
find
the right moment.

“Mandoran!”

He looked up, his eyes widening, and nodded. His leap took him across the room; his landing, less graceful, almost knocked Kaylin off her feet.

Annarion moved to intercept; of the two, he was the better fighter, and if he carried the brunt of the battle, he didn’t carry it alone. But he could see, blindingly clearly, what the others could only barely follow.

Kaylin understood how Bellusdeo had come to be injured. How Maggaron had almost lost his arm. How Sanabalis—ouch. She could see it all, as if each moment were captured in Records. And she could see the moment at which the three men in the circle lifted their heads, opened their mouths and spoke.

Their voices were louder than the Arkon’s; they were almost on a level with angry Bellusdeo and angry Emperor. The edges of sound trailed from one eye to another as she followed it back, and back again, and froze.

She was almost there now; almost at the moment of the spell’s culmination—and she suddenly realized it was
not
where she wanted to be. She wouldn’t survive it. She would be pulled from the here and now of Kaylin Neya into whatever plane awaited the Barrani Arcanist.

She didn’t even understand how the Barrani Arcanist remained trapped, if barely, in these ones.

Oh. Yes, she did. Gilbert.

She needed to shift her view to a different eye. She needed to stop the linear backward progression—and she was running out of eyes.

Yes. I am sorry, Kaylin. I borrow the power of the marks of the Chosen—but they are not infinite, as you are not infinite; I have tried to...isolate...the exact event in this location. This type of precision is not, was not, ever demanded of me. The Ancients wished to preserve the possibility of life—but the fact of life was of less concern.

She nodded. He wasn’t offering a guarantee—but life didn’t. It offered chances.

She hesitated; Mandoran turned his back toward her, bending slightly into his knees. Waiting and watching. “Can you see it?” she asked him. Her voice sounded wobbly and stretched.

“Yes.” His didn’t.

“But you can’t reach him?”

“No. Not yet.”

She didn’t ask how he could see the Arcanist without being able to interact with him—especially not when
interact
meant kill. She needed to close or at least narrow the remainder of Gilbert’s open eyes, because it was becoming harder and harder to focus. Harder to find the moment in time—because there didn’t seem to
be
one.

Gilbert—

“Kaylin!”

She stumbled.

“Kaylin.” Mandoran’s voice was beside her ear; one of his arms was under her arm, shoring her up.

“How long? How long ago was it?”

Mandoran’s answer made no sense. Literally. It did not resolve into syllables. She wanted to cry; she felt as if she was fumbling the only chance she was going to get, and the cost of that fumble, the
cost
of it—

No. No.
Think, damn it
.
Focus.

She tried. She moved viewpoint, moved vantage; she looked through every eye that remained. The Arcanist
would not
resolve. The center of the triangle, which contained the very real nucleus of a magic that made her entire body scream in pain, would not solidify in
any
of Gilbert’s remaining open eyes.

Breathe, Kaylin.

Severn.

Breathe. Gilbert couldn’t see what caused the break. He can’t see it now—it exists outside his sphere of influence.

She knew this. She didn’t resent hearing it. Severn’s voice was calm, but not distant. She felt his concern, his worry—but there was no fear in it. Not like her fear.

You can feel the magic. You can feel it strongly enough. You’re almost there.
And he believed that she would get there; there was no doubt in his voice. She stood on that belief, because she had none of her own, and it helped. It gave her space to think. Again.

The voices of the three men were becoming stronger. Stuttering between them, other voices joined in. Kaylin pulled herself up and away from Mandoran, which took a great deal of effort. She turned—and this took effort, as well. It was almost as if she was becoming fixed or frozen; as if time was hardening around her and anchoring her in place.

And it wasn’t the right place. Not yet.

The other voices drew her attention, because she couldn’t see who was speaking—if the staccato sounds could be called speech at all. She turned, stumbled again and this time righted herself with the nearest object that wasn’t Mandoran’s arm.

It was stone.

It was stone that felt warm; it was stone that was in motion, vibrating as if struck.

It wasn’t stone at all.

Across town, Evanton was attempting to use the stones in his Garden, or what remained of his Garden, as an anchor for...reality. She wondered if those stones were like these: these were almost like bells. Resonant, when struck, the sound growing louder before it died into stillness or the silence of the city—which was never truly silent.

Yes
, her familiar said quietly.

The Garden’s stones resonated with the names of the elements.

These stones didn’t. Couldn’t. But they spoke with the voices of...men. Of mortals—

Not all.

—of people like Kaylin, or Teela, or Bellusdeo, or Maggaron.

Why these three?

Three were needed
, the familiar replied.
This is not the Keeper’s Garden; the three were meant to anchor one small space for one brief moment.

But why not immortals? Why not the Barrani whose name he owned?

The Wild Elements
agreed
to the cage of the Keeper’s Garden. The three who are here chose to be here. Those whose name he might have known would almost certainly not.

She turned then and threw her arms around the stone she’d used to shore up her weight. Her teeth rattled with the vibration she both absorbed and muffled.

The light in the room shifted. Kaylin didn’t turn to look at the triangle’s center. But she didn’t need to turn: she had Gilbert’s eyes, and she could see everything.

Chapter 29

Mandoran’s eyes widened. He abandoned his daggers, abandoned his position and—to a lesser degree—abandoned Kaylin. Kaylin grimaced. She didn’t have Mandoran’s True Name, or the True Name of any of his cohort, but she could practically hear Teela scream at him. She knew why he was there.

He threw himself around the second stone, just as Kaylin had thrown herself around the first one. Throughout, the men in the triangle stared straight ahead, as if they lacked solidity. As if they were simple illusions.

But nothing was simple.

The room shuddered again; the pain caused by magic increased. Kaylin clung tighter, not to still or muffle the vibrations, but to stop herself from screaming. She bit her lip, tucked her chin and cursed in slow, deliberate Leontine. It helped.

There
was
something in the center of the triangular formation after all.

She couldn’t tell Annarion to hug the bell. He wouldn’t survive it. She opened her mouth and closed it with a snap, but not before a single word managed to escape it. “Teela!”

One of her oldest friends—in all senses of the word—heard her. Or maybe she heard Mandoran. She flickered as she crossed the floor; she didn’t close the gap in any consistent way. She ran; she walked; she vaulted; she edged around Annarion. All of her possible movements were traced across the air and across Gilbert’s remaining open eyes, because each of his eyes could see her, and she wasn’t exactly the same in any of them.

But she was Teela in
all
of them, and she understood exactly what needed to be done.

The Barrani Hawk reached the third stone, skirting the sides of the implied triangle, and threw her arms around it. Kaylin heard her grunt. She heard it clearly. But she was no longer looking at Teela. She was looking at the center of the room.

A dense, almost sparkling haze was beginning to form there. It implied shape, form and solidity without possessing any of these things. It made Kaylin’s eyes ache.

No, not her eyes. Gilbert’s eyes. Gilbert’s eyes hurt. Gilbert’s eyes watered.

Kaylin opened the two she’d been born with. She couldn’t remember closing them, and it was very, very disorienting. Her two eyes saw less than any single eye of Gilbert—but they saw what they saw more clearly. Kaylin’s back was toward the other two stones, but she could see Bellusdeo, the Arkon, Annarion. Behind them, Maggaron, Sanabalis and Tain. She couldn’t tell if Sanabalis was still alive—not with her own eyes.

Gilbert’s could see Sanabalis so clearly she might have been standing beside him—but Gilbert’s eyes couldn’t check a pulse. They couldn’t touch anything, but they could, apparently, feel pain—and they could transmit that feeling to Kaylin, who was already in enough of it.

Grinding teeth, cursing in Leontine, she kept her hold on the stone, but shifted, turning her body, and therefore her head, her physical eyes—not Gilbert’s—toward the center of the triangle.

Standing there was a Barrani Arcanist. He was striking because his hair—like the Consort’s—was a white, long spill from head to midthigh; it was not the usual Barrani black. His skin was pale; he looked almost alabaster. His lips, his cheeks, the contours of his closed eyelids were so
still.
He wore a circlet much like the Arcanist Evarrim’s. Kaylin couldn’t tell what color the gem had once been. Now? It was scorched, cracked. She had seen this happen once, to a ruby, in the circlet of a different Arcanist.

Gilbert’s eyes couldn’t actually see the Arcanist. Kaylin’s now could. But Annarion and Bellusdeo continued to battle with someone or something Kaylin still couldn’t see clearly.

“Mandoran, Teela, can you see him?”

Teela lifted her head; her eyes narrowed. “Yes, kitling.”

“Can you—”

“He’s not corporeal,” Mandoran said.

“What
else
do we have to do?” Kaylin shouted. She had to shout to be heard over the growing noise of stones, people, combat. She had to shout to be heard over her own fear.

“Gilbert has to
see him
!”

And Gilbert couldn’t. But Mandoran could.

“Look at him!” Kaylin shouted.

“I
am
looking at him!” the Barrani who was not quite Barrani shouted back. Two of his eyes were blue; one was a golden orb.

She understood, finally, as she met its lidless stare, that the thing that shed light at its heart was a word.

A true word.

“Mandoran,
look at him
with
all
of the eyes in your head!”

“I can’t—” His blue eyes widened.

Kaylin turned the rest of Gilbert’s open eyes toward the Arcanist they couldn’t see. Mandoran turned the single, foreign eye in the same direction, at the same time.

Light blinded every one of Gilbert’s eyes that Kaylin could use. It might have blinded the one in Mandoran’s forehead; she didn’t know. She couldn’t see out of that one. She couldn’t see out of the one Annarion carried, either.

But the voices of the three stones converged into a single, resonant voice: a high cascade of syllables that sounded almost like the notes of a song. She nearly joined it, it was that compelling. She could
feel
it as much as she could hear it—probably because the entire front of her body was now plastered against the oddly warm stone surface. She couldn’t mute it in any other way.

Almost, she didn’t want to. Almost. But her familiar bit her ear. At this point, she was almost numb—his teeth couldn’t compete with the pain the magic was causing. Or they shouldn’t have—but he wasn’t just a translucent lizard.

Kaylin lifted her head; she’d tucked her chin, the way she always did when pain was harshest. Tears trailed down her cheeks. She was certain that blood also trailed down her ear, her neck. It was a different kind of pain; it braced her.

Arms shaking with both tension and the vibration of the stone around which her arms were wrapped, Kaylin understood that when the stone stilled, when this eerie, unintelligibly beautiful song faded, it would be too late.

She wasn’t the Arkon. She wasn’t an ancient Barrani. She wasn’t Gilbert or Tara or even Helen. She had straightened the lines and shapes of true words; she had touched them, intuiting meaning slowly and with effort; she had held them together. She had carried them—and was still, in some fashion, carrying them now. She had even spoken them.

She had never spoken them without the aid of someone who was an ancient, powerful immortal standing almost literally over her shoulder and speaking them into her ear. The small, ancient, powerful immortal sitting on her shoulder was only biting at the moment.

It was possible that Gilbert was trying to speak. It was possible that he was standing over her shoulder and screaming in her ear—if he could even
find
it, right now.

She met Mandoran’s borrowed eye, swallowed and spoke the word that gave it its light.

* * *

Or she
tried
.

Kaylin understood that this word, this word at the heart of Mandoran’s borrowed eye, could be spoken because she had seen Sanabalis do it. She had seen the Arkon do it. True words tugged at her memory. They always sounded familiar; they sounded like something she should recognize, should be able to repeat, should understand.

But her own fledgling attempts to speak them had always been a fumbling disaster. It had taken months to be able to think and hold the name of fire for long enough to light a bloody candle. She didn’t have months now.

You do, Kaylin.
It was the familiar.
If you require them, you do.

I don’t
have time
.

No? You don’t understand where you are or what Gilbert has done. You
have
time. You have all the time in the world.

What?

You have time, Kaylin. The path that makes your minutes and hours is—was—broken here. It is twisted and stretched. And...it is now a contained anomaly.

What will it cost?

She felt his approval and hated that it made her feel better. She wasn’t a child, anymore. She shouldn’t
need
approval.

To succeed? You have all the time in the world. They do not. To
take
the time, you will have to do what the Arcanist has done: step out of time. Uproot yourself.

What if—

Yes. Think of the life you live now as a cloth. Your Arcanist has slashed it. There is a long cut, but it can be stitched or mended. There are two sides from which you can mend it. One requires speed, and one does not. But if you mend it while you are entirely uprooted, you will not be able to return.

But won’t I—

Cause the same disruption as the Arcanist? No. There is a difference.

She swallowed.

Gilbert is here now. Gilbert is aware of you.

She did not want Gilbert to destroy her.

He will have no need. You will be adrift from the thing he is meant, and was created, to safeguard, and there will be
no tear
. What happens to you
after
is not his concern. Understand what he said, Kaylin: he could repair what has been broken here, as can you. But you are needle and thread. He is torch and sword. He will destroy anything that is dependent upon the cloth, and he does not wish to do so. He is trying to preserve you.

Why?

Because Kattea was correct. Find a way.

* * *

Something hit her in the face. She didn’t lift her arms, because the stone was still vibrating; it was only the muffling that suspended or stretched the moment itself. Her cheek stung. It burned.

Yes
.

It was Nightshade’s mark.

Your brother is going to be so pissed off.

He laughed. The laughter was wild, loud—it was almost the type of laugh she was used to hearing from Mandoran.
You stand on the very precipice, and
that’s
what you think of? That my brother will be angry with
me?

She thought her cheek would blister, and she held on to the sensation. She had always been, and remained to this day, afraid of Nightshade.

Yes, Kaylin
. Nightshade understood the value of fear.
I will not allow you to do this.

Don’t
, she told him, weary now.
Help me, or leave me alone.

Help you?

Yes.
She could see the cold expression on his perfect face; she could see the color of his eyes. She couldn’t touch him, but...he was here. She accepted it. She felt the pain recede. She was right, too: her cheek was going to blister.

But she understood what she had to do. She called Ynpharion, the Barrani whose ambivalence was one part gratitude, one part disgust and three parts resentment; he was the only one whose True Name she held against his will.

Lord Kaylin!

I know. I know. I’m in the center of the storm, and I need your help.

He was instantly wary. Instantly cautious. The High Halls was mobilizing around him, but he had frozen, and when he moved, he moved toward the Consort.
I am never far from her now.
He said it with pride, with yearning and with—yes—a tingle of fear. The Barrani did not trust.
What help do you command?

Just—stay here. Stay here. Speak to me.

He was confused. He was suspicious. He was, however, willing. He didn’t fight her at all.

She then reached farther, to the West March.
Lirienne
.

Kaylin?
She could see, in the distance, the exterior of the Hallionne Alsanis.
Yes. The Hallionne has summoned me. Sedarias is...concerned, and the Hallionne cannot calm her. What has happened?

Mandoran, Annarion and Teela are with me, and we’re—

She gave up on words; she let him see.

He didn’t ask what she wanted or needed. He didn’t ask what she commanded; if she held his name, it was, in the end, with his permission. All of the power she had over the Lord of the West March was theoretical, and they both knew it.

This annoyed Nightshade. For once, he kept his criticism to himself.

The Lord of the West March smiled; she felt the warmth of his expression.
When
, he asked,
will you visit?

Not right now.

The smile deepened. She held on to it as she reached for the last of the names she knew, the last of the things that were true and prickly and binding.

High Lord.
His was not a name she called. It was not a name she approached. On most days—good
or
bad—she buried the knowledge as far away from conscious thought as she possibly could. Lirienne had chosen—as Nightshade had chosen—to gift her with knowledge of his name. The High Lord was more complicated.

She felt his eyes open and look inward, and they burned like green fire. He did not seem surprised.

No.

She wanted to apologize for bothering him, even given the circumstances. She wanted to let go of what she’d touched and back as far away as possible. The only person who agreed with this choice was, of course, Ynpharion.

But it was too late.

Show me
. The words were a command, and she obeyed instantly; had started to obey before she’d really registered the silent words. His touch was not gentle.

My sister will be angry
, he told her,
if I lose you.
She saw him so clearly she thought he must somehow be here. In this room. In this fight.

Ynpharion was annoyed. Annoyed and awed.
You feel the presence of the High Lord.

Yes. But she felt the pull of all of them. She felt their weight. It was a weight she had taken on in ignorance the first time; it was a weight she had required to save a life; a weight she had given, willingly; and a weight she had taken without permission.

She held on to all of them. She wove them together. They were her tether.

She turned to Mandoran once again, and she looked at the word that he carried. It was not part of him, but at the moment, it was not separate.

She listened.