The Chronicles of Elantra 5 - Cast in Silence (27 page)

“The names of the undying—are they meant to return to the lake?”

The consort glanced at the High Lord.

Silence.

In the silence, for just a moment, Kaylin could hear the faint cries and pleas of a multitude of muted voices. She could, if she closed her eyes, see the dead who uttered them without hope, standing across a chasm that was bridged by a slender span of misshapen rock. Above them, rock, dripping over centuries into shapes that only ice took in the streets of the city; beneath them, hidden to Kaylin’s eyes, different rock, fire, the glimmering of a magic that was so old it didn’t truly feel magical at all.

And before them, in command of them, pulling them from the darkness and sending them back at its whim, one creature, nameless and almost shapeless.

Because beneath these Halls, in a darkness that had probably never seen light, the shadows gathered, waiting for one gap, one lapse of guardianship, that would allow them to run free. And while they waited, they held what they had taken: the Barrani who did not have the strength—if
strength
was the word for
indifference
—to walk away from the truth of their private vision of hell.

She didn’t close her eyes.

“They died,” she said quietly, her voice so soft even she had trouble hearing it. “Those who failed the test of the High Halls. They died.”

The High Lord closed his eyes and turned his face away. It was a very Barrani gesture.

“Yes,” the Consort replied, for he would not. “They died.”

“But their names—”

“Their names have
never
returned to the lake. They will never return while the shadows of the Old Ones remain.”

Kaylin allowed the words to sink in, to take a shape and form that intuition alone didn’t give them. She waited until she could find her voice again and speak clearly and cleanly. Where
cleanly
in this case meant a whole lot of hushed Leontine invective.

“It is to prevent our entire race from meeting that fate,” the consort said evenly, “that my brother is High Lord. Because of your intervention, he has the strength to ensure that we are safe while he is alive.”

Kaylin nodded, still thinking. “If Lord Nightshade died, I couldn’t hold his name. I couldn’t hold him here.”

“No.”

“But the—”

“The shadows beneath the High Halls
are,
in some ways, the Old Ones, Kaylin. They are half of the face of the only gods we knew. They
created
the words. What they can do, none of the rest of us can do, and for that, we must be grateful.”

“High Lord,” Kaylin said, for he had still not spoken. “What did you do?”

“I studied,” he replied. “For decades. I traveled, as I could, and I learned. You have heard the stories about the undying, no doubt. The Dragons have some understanding, but it is, as is so often the case with Dragon theory, flawed.”

She was grateful that Tiamaris wasn’t in hearing range. Not that he would have done anything but respond with similar arrogance.

“At the height of our power, in the absence of the Old Ones, there were those of our kin who had some understanding of the tongue of the ancients.”

There were Dragons who did, as well; Kaylin didn’t point this out.

“Understand that to
us
language is not a simple act of communication. Not the Ancient language; it is transformative. What you say becomes what you are, and if you say it well, and clearly, and with will, it will transform the landscape around you, altering it in subtle ways.

“We came to our understanding of magic through our attempts to speak the Ancient Tongue.”

Kaylin frowned. “But most magic—”

“Does not require speech?”

“Only if you’re bad—Sanabalis says speech and physical gestures are a type of crutch.”

“That would be Lord Sanabalis, and yes, he is correct. Magic, as it is taught and understood, does not require speech. But our attempts to harness the Ancient Tongue taught us how to approach the magic that underlies this world.” He glanced at the consort. “Our names, our birthing rites, our waking into the world, were given to us by the Old Ones. We were said to be formed of stone, not flesh, until they gave our ancestors the First Names, and story says this is why we do not age as you do.”

“I think I understand the difference between myth and history.”

“Good. Understand that the concern of my kin has often been power. Without it, we die or we serve. There is not a man born among us who dreams—at first—of service, although in the end, many are bent that way.”

She grimaced, and said nothing.

“But in that dawn, when the world was young and the Old Ones had left us, we were powerful, Kaylin. We thought of ourselves as the new gods.”

“So did the Dragons.”

“Yes. They are the eldest,” he added after a slight pause. “Although I admit this is not completely accepted chronology among some of my kin.”

She would have let him continue, but something about the words made her raise her hand. “Why do you believe they’re the eldest?”

“They have two forms. The one that you see in the City, and the form of a great beast. They breathe fire, and smoke, and ash. They bear scales that only the very, very finest of our weapons could pierce.”

She nodded; she’d seen it. “They were made that way, though.”

“Yes. But…it is my belief that they were made when the Old Ones were not yet themselves at war, that some part of the chaos that is shadow and some part of the order that is not went into their building. The Dragon form is sharp and it is beautiful—but it is also kin, in some ways, to the beasts that leave the shadows when the shadows find some freedom.

“But that is not to the point, and if I reach the point slowly, I am tracing a path toward it. Our ancestors played with the words the Old Ones appeared to have abandoned, and those words brought magic to us all. You have studied with Lord Sanabalis.” It wasn’t a question.

Kaylin nodded.

“You bore his medallion when we first met. It was seen,” he added, “by the Lords of the Court, and if you did not understand it clearly at the time, they did. They could interfere with you, but in so doing, they courted the fury of a Dragon Lord. The Dragons are notoriously possessive.”

Given that their most important laws involved hoarding, this was not news to Kaylin.

“Magic, when it is taught to humans, is taught differently—but some of the fundamentals must remain the same. Tell me, have you encountered the test of the candle?”

Kaylin cringed and bit her tongue to stop herself from cursing. “Yes,” she managed.

“Did he not tell you to imagine—to discover—the
name
of fire?”

She nodded slowly.

“Understand that this is not a simple convention. Fire
has
a name. Different students will arrive at it in entirely individual ways—especially the humans. But the name, the naming, is part of making it
your own
. This is the legacy of the Ancients, and some pale reflection of the glory they discovered when they began to attempt to invoke the Old Tongue.

“Because they sought power, and they found it, they were content for a time. But as their power and knowledge grew, they came to understand that they had a fatal flaw, a singular weakness—the names that bound them. Those names, private and hidden, could be used against them, and all of the magic at their disposal would avail them nothing.”

“You can’t just
use
a name. It has to be given.”

“No, Kaylin,” he said quietly. “It does not.”

She stared at him.

“Do you think,” he added, opening his eyes and meeting hers, “that I willingly gave my name to the creature the High Halls imprisons? Do you think
any
of the damned did?”

She was silent, after that. It didn’t last, but she felt that for the duration, it was a somber and qualitative silence. It certainly was compared to the first words she spoke. “I don’t understand.”

“No. And I am not the man to enlighten you. But some beings exist who can see names as clearly as they can read handwriting. It is not always possible, and before you ask, I am not one of them—I don’t know how, or when, it works.” He hesitated for just a moment, and she marked the hesitation. But when he spoke, he said, “It is my suspicion that you could do it.”

“But—but—”

“Because of the marks you bear, Kaylin. And if you’re about to ask me how, don’t. I understand the marks little better than you claim to.” He raised a hand as she opened her mouth. “I am not accusing you of lying. I believe that you have as little understanding as you claim.”

“Thank you. I think.”

“But our ancients grew to understand their names not as the source of their life, or even their power, but as a weakness. They learned the Old words, and they tried, in their fashion, to exist without names.”

“It didn’t work.”

“Oh, it did. You have seen the results of it, I think, at least once.”

She nodded.

“They do not die as you or I understand death—nor do they live. Nameless, they exist. They are not without thought or cunning.”

“Neither are ferals.”

“But they are not as we are. They do not appear to feel either pain or fear, and they are therefore without natural caution.” Again, he hesitated. “Do you understand why we attempted to destroy them all?”

She nodded.

But he shook his head. “I don’t think you do. Had I succeeded in my attempt to divest myself of a name, my father would have had no choice but to destroy me and end his long game. He had hoped my brother, the Lord of the West March, would do so.”

She remembered. “He wouldn’t.”

“Not until the end,” the High Lord said softly. “But it is my belief that in the end my brother would have done what was necessary to save us all. I do not know if he would have done so in time. But I would have achieved some semblance of peace—I would have given my name to the void, and the shadows beneath the High Halls would have had no direct purchase over me.

“They might have had some indirect purchase. We destroy the undying,” he told her quietly, “because they are hollow, and they can often be vessels for the chaos of shadow.”

“When you say you would have given your name to the void, what does that mean?”

“It means that the name would leave me, or I would leave it. It would not return to the lake, because I would technically still be alive.”

“Where does it go?”

He shook his head. “I am not entirely certain, Kaylin.”

She frowned, then. It was a twitch. Something in his words tugged at her memory, at the facts she’d gathered and had not yet fully examined. Name. Something about true names. She looked at Severn, whose face was, as it so often was in the Barrani Court, a study in neutrality. He did not meet her gaze, but he did nod, briefly.

“Illien wouldn’t have made himself an empty vessel,” she finally said. “Not so close to the heart of the fiefs. It makes
no sense.
He had to know—”

“Yes.”

“What was he trying to do?”

He didn’t answer the question, not directly. This, Kaylin thought, with some frustration, was the problem with talking to immortals. They
had
forever. And they generally took it, too. “I told you I studied. I studied our legends and our lore. I spoke with our sages. And what I discovered in my desperate search for some solution to my dilemma was this—There were at least two, in our history, who managed to lose the names that had brought them awareness without becoming essentially empty vessels. They learned, from the errors of those who had made the first attempts, and they attempted to do better.

“It was not an option, for me.”

“Why?”

“Because it involved, among other things, the study of the words of the Old Ones. Not the memory of the words, not the traces that exist in our history—or even the history retained by the Dragons—but the words of Power.”

“Words of…” Almost involuntarily, she glanced at her arms. The marks on them were hidden, as they usually were, by the fall of fabric. “Power.”

“Yes. I do not know if Castle Nightshade is like the Tower that Illien inhabited. I suspect it must be, but suspect, as well, that each building is unique. The buildings themselves have power, Kaylin, and it is a power that we, as individuals, do not possess.”

She remembered the living statues in Castle Nightshade, and remembered, as well, that Nightshade had said that he had dared to use the Castle’s power to create them. To preserve living members of almost every race in Elantra, frozen in time, until he released them.

“Two Barrani sorcerers discovered that they could, in some fashion, remake their names. They could choose, for themselves, runes and words that were never resident in the lake from which we are all, as infants, birthed. They did so, Kaylin.

“And they remained among the Barrani, shorn of life, but
living.
” He glanced at the consort. “It was not discovered immediately,” he said. “But when it was, it was discovered by the consort of the High Lord—she knew.”

“Did she survive the knowledge?”

“You understand much. No. But at least one of them perished when revealed.”

“The other?”

“He fled.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Long before Elantra existed.”

“You don’t know if he died.”

“No. We know that he could possibly live, even now. But so, too, could any one of our race from that time, in theory. We do not fear time, but many are the things that diminish us as time passes.

“What we also know, from those records, is that the two could, with time and subtlety, create the undying. Those, they could imbue with some of their power, some hidden word of their own, and those they changed thus cleaved to their masters.”

“It seems like a lot of work for people who could just use their true names against them.”

“The use of a name requires both power and concentration. It is not perfect control for anything more than moments at a time. Because it is imperfect, there is always the possibility of betrayal, if not in the obvious way, then in subtle. This? It required very, very little of either.