The Chronicles of Elantra 5 - Cast in Silence (46 page)

She spoke a few choice Leontine words. “I’m not really ready to go back. I’m hungry, tired, I’ve only just left, and I wasn’t certain we’d all make it out.”

“I am not at all certain we will all make it out a second time. As I said, the choice is yours.”

She looked toward the heartland. She wasn’t close enough to the border that she could clearly see the White Towers, Barren’s home.

“Yes,” Severn said, in a much quieter voice than the Dragon’s. “It’s the Tower or Barren. The Tower or the border.”

“I’m not sure the border will hold much longer.”

“It won’t,” Tiamaris said, voice flat. “That much must now be obvious to you. What the Tower did was a last act of desperation. It has, I think, little left to offer.”

If they were at the border when whatever contained shadow broke, they might be able to save some lives. Tiamaris, at least, could fly. Kaylin wasn’t entirely certain
what
she could do, but the curse and the gift of these damn marks would almost certainly make some damn difference.

Not as much of a difference, she thought, as the Tower. Or Castle Nightshade. Or any of the other buildings that had, if she had understood all she’d heard correctly, been created to contain and withstand what lay at the heart of the fiefs.

“All right,” she said, sucking in air. “Tower first.”

The streets were empty for the time of day. Empty enough that it made Kaylin wonder if the storm had delivered them to yet another time and place. “Were we even
in
the Tower? Was it all an artifact of the storm?”

“I will leave that to the theorists to decide,” was the Dragon’s reply. “But if you are uncertain about our location—and time—don’t be.”

“Why?”

“The Emperor is close,” he replied curtly.

“You know that?”

The smile that touched the corner of his lips failed to touch his eyes. “Yes, Kaylin. I, and all my kin. Take comfort from that fact if you can.”

“I can,” she said.
Can you?
She didn’t ask. She didn’t understand Dragons at all.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, she did. What had his choice been, after all? To serve or to die. What had hers been? The same. And she’d done it, because she’d seen no other damn choice. It had never occurred to her to judge him, and it was probably suicide to pity him.

“Tower,” she repeated, because it was safest.

The difference in the Tower was immediately obvious, perhaps because they’d just left it. It looked like a standing ruin, albeit a ruin of stone, surrounded by a sea of weeds and a fence that made leaning and falling synonymous. In spite of the last fact, there were very few gaps in it through which to fit a Dragon Lord. Kaylin had found her way in once, and found her way in again with ease. This time, however, she held on to Severn’s hand as she made her way into the weeds, and he followed her lead in silence.

She paused. Where there had been a door in the past, there was nothing now.

Nothing except a hole in the wall, and standing in that hole, Lord Nightshade. He was leaning against the standing stone, and it clearly supported his weight.

“What are you doing here?” Kaylin asked. “Why are you not in Nightshade?”

He smiled. It was not an entirely pleasant expression, but that was to be expected from a Barrani smile. He turned to Tiamaris. “Lord Tiamaris,” he said, bowing. The gesture was both respectful and familiar, something only a Barrani could carry off. “You have been missing for hours, and in those hours, there have been further difficulties in the fief of Barren.”

Tiamaris nodded. “I had noted the change of the sun’s position.” He said nothing else.

Then again, he didn’t have to; Kaylin was there. “What happened?” she said, her tone sharpening. She started to add more and stopped as she looked more carefully at the Lord of Nightshade’s face. It was pale, but not in the flawless way of normal Barrani skin. Had he been human, she would have said he was exhausted.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, voice flat.

He inclined his head. “But here,” he replied, “is where the fief will stand—or fall. What is left of Barren in the wake of the breach, I will not venture to guess. Look, and look carefully, Hawk.”

Kaylin frowned, as his gaze grazed the sky. She looked up, as did Severn and last, Tiamaris. It wasn’t unusual to see Aerians on patrol in the skies above the City; the heights were part of their beat. But these Aerians—and she recognized their wings in the distance, they couldn’t be anything else—weren’t flying above the outer City—their path was too low for that.

They were flying over Barren.

“How bad is it?” she asked softly, watching the skies.

“Bad enough,” Lord Nightshade replied, “that the Dragon Court is rumored to be preparing to take wing, as well.”

Tiamaris said, “Come, Kaylin. We have no time.”

“Should we—”

“No time. The Emperor will not summon me back from the Tower, regardless of what the Court does or does not do. It is the Tower that is at the heart of the danger, and it is to the Tower that I was sent.” He started toward the opening in the rounded, thick wall, and Nightshade slid to one side.

“I have delivered what word I can,” he told Kaylin. “And I will deliver, as well, one gift.” He lifted a hand, and he cupped her cheek. It was the cheek upon which he had placed his mark, and where his skin touched hers it burned and it froze simultaneously. Magic at work. “I would go with you,” he told her, as he let his hand—which was smooth and unblemished—fall away. “But the boundaries are not stable, between my fief and this one. I stand upon the boundary,” he added.

“You’re standing in the fief.”

“Yes. But I have no power, here. All of the power I can bring to bear holds the boundaries fast.”

“Nightshade is safe—”

“No, Kaylin, it is not. Not one of the fiefs is safe if Barren falls, but it will be Nightshade and Candallar who will crumble first.”

“Candallar?”

“The fief to the other side of Barren,” he replied. “It is not, in size, the equal of Barren or Nightshade, and it is narrower, but its defenses hold.”

“The fief lord there was rumored to be—”

“Barrani, yes. I have heard the rumors.”

“Is he?”

“It is not relevant. What is relevant is this—Illien was the fief lord of these lands, the last true fief lord. What Barren is, his name implies. If Illien chose to escape his name in the way of the foolish, you must find out why the Tower still holds his memory, or why he still holds the Tower.”

“But we—”

“I saw what you did, when you first ventured here. You have returned. If anything of that Tower remains in this one, find it. Wake it.”

“I can’t—”

“No. You are bound to me. Even when we first met it was true, although I did not understand the reasons for it. The Tower cannot take what you cannot offer.”

“Lord Nightshade,” Tiamaris began.

“Lord Tiamaris. I leave you now. Kaylin—”

She had started to enter the darkness, and turned. “You’re worried,” she said, half surprised.

“I am concerned, yes. Given the circumstances, I do not think it a sign of undue weakness. Be careful, in the Tower. Be careful with your wishes, be careful with your fears. Expose as little as you possibly can.”

Severn, who seldom spoke when Nightshade was present, said, “If the fate of the City depends upon that, we’re already doomed; what the Tower saw when we visited it a few hours ago—in subjective time—will give it everything it needs, if it intends harm.”

“It is not perhaps the Tower itself that is the concern. The will of the Tower is not the only will present when the Tower is active.”

“The Tower
isn’t
active or we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Kaylin snapped.

“Is it not?” Nightshade replied. “Touch the walls, Kaylin. Trace the circles on the floors.” He stepped away from the gaping hole itself. “It was not a simple matter to gain entry.”

“We walked in through the gap in the fence.”

“Yes. I…did not. And I fear that leaving will take some effort. I will leave,” he added, “while you enter. One of us will have a less difficult time because the attention of the Tower will be split.” He nodded to the Dragon Lord, and to Severn.

Kaylin lifted a hand to her cheek. Then she grimaced. “Haven’t we done this before?”

“Last time,” Severn offered, “there was a door.”

CHAPTER 25

There was dust on the floor; it was undisturbed by anything but the edge of Nightshade’s cape. Small shards of rock added texture to the walk, as did the visible webs of industrious spiders. There was no light. Kaylin glanced at Tiamaris, and the Dragon shook his head.

“It is still a Tower. Magic here is unsafe.”

“Even more so than it was the first time,” Severn added quietly. They turned to look at him as he knelt and examined the floor. When he rose, he glanced at them both. “If I understood everything that’s been said to date, this Tower is starved for power, for magic. The use of magic will draw its attention because it requires magic to fulfill its mandate.”

Kaylin grimaced. “You not only didn’t fail magical theory,” she said, as she began to edge her way into the darkness, “you probably got the highest mark in your damn class.”

“Which is your way of telling me I’m making sense.”

“Pretty much.” She stood in the door frame, listening. Silence. She spoke a word. A name. Silence. She spoke a different name, with the same results. Nobody was home. She bent and touched the surface of the floor that the outer light could still reach. Severn bent to sweep the dust away, and she caught his wrist, pressing it tightly in warning. He stilled.

“What is wrong?” Tiamaris asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing. But…”

“Is the Tower speaking to you?”

“No.” That would be too damn easy. The building was as silent as most deserted buildings; the walls muffled the sounds of the nearby street, which wasn’t hard, given how deserted it was. “You?”

“No. If we exchange words, I believe you will know.” Tiamaris glanced at her arms.

“It’s like a crypt in here,” Kaylin said. “Can either of you see any doors?”

Mindful now of the dust that Kaylin had prevented him from disturbing, Severn began to walk along the rounded wall. He walked full circle, some of it in darkness, and came back to them. “No doors,” he said, to no one’s surprise. “Nothing that looks like it might be either a window or a portal, either. The dimensions on the inside of this section of Tower appear to conform to the dimensions on the outside.

“There are no stairs. It’s possible there might be a trapdoor under the dust along the floor.”

“The floors are stone.”

“The floors that we’ve examined in any detail are.”

Kaylin completed her own circuit of the interior wall. He was right; it was what you’d expect if the building were entirely as it appeared. Except for its lack of stairs. Or a door that led into the rectangular part that jutted out the side.

“Any ideas?” Severn asked.

“Yes.”

“I was afraid of that.”

It wasn’t possible to walk across the dust without disturbing it, but Kaylin made certain they walked carefully as she surveyed the floor. She couldn’t walk on her toes, and didn’t try, but she sectioned off a large part of the floor—verbally, as she’d brought nothing with her to do it the regular way—and then she began to brush the dust away.

She did it carefully and methodically as Severn and Tiamaris watched.

“Private, what are you doing?”

“Writing,” she replied. She was. She had no ink, of course, but the dust itself was useful for that. Tiamaris took a breath, but no words followed. She lost track of time as she worked, writing first the large, crossed strokes of a
T,
followed by the steeple of an
A,
and the rather more difficult rounded
R.
The last
A
was slightly squashed by the perimeter left by careful feet.

When she had finished, she motioned to Severn.

But Tiamaris and Severn were already conversing, in low enough voices that she’d missed them while she worked. “Severn?”

It was Tiamaris who answered. “What have you written, Kaylin?” The quiet hush of his voice made her instantly uneasy.

“Her name. The name I gave her.”

“Not your name.”

“No. I think you’d recognize my—” She stopped. He’d also recognize the name she’d given the Tower. Turning, squinting into the pale light cast by a missing wall, she saw the floor. The dust had been cleared, all right—but the letters she had thought she was making and the ones that now existed in the temporary medium of age were in no way the same.

She’d seen complicated religious mandalas that were simpler, albeit far more colorful, than this. “I did that?”

“Yes,” Tiamaris said. “Surprising, isn’t it?” If he’d been Severn, she would have kicked him for the tone of his voice; she considered it, but it was a bad deal. She’d probably break her own toes without leaving so much as a bruise.

“I don’t suppose you can read it?” she asked instead.

“No.”

“Recognize it?”

“Yes.”

“The Old Tongue.”

“Yes. But I will say this—it is of a piece. Whatever you wrote, it has a cohesive overall meaning.”

“How can you say that if you can’t even read the language?”

“Look at it.”

She did, although it was more of a glare. Over her shoulder, Tiamaris’s voice continued. “The Arkon and Sanabalis have some experience with the written word—but it is scant experience, and much of it is secondhand. I have more firsthand experience with the written word, and very, very little with the spoken; the Arkon considers it a failing. Of mine,” he added, in case this wasn’t obvious. “There is some visual component to the written word, and in the case of stone or stand-alone carvings, some dimensional component, as well. Where the words combine in a specific way, there is an overall harmony to the whole.” When she failed to speak at all, he sighed.

“If a wall is made of brick,” he added, “it is a wall. If you throw bits of wood and copper and wax into the whole while you’re constructing it, it is something else entirely.”