The Chronicles of Elantra 6 - Cast in Chaos (34 page)

Tara’s eyes rounded in a perfect expression of human surprise. She didn’t answer. Kaylin thought she understood why. She was a Tower, albeit a Tower whose Avatar could walk the streets and speak to the people she had been built to protect, and her law was subordinate to her Lord’s. In this case, that was Tiamaris.

Kaylin forced herself to ask a more neutral question. “You knew when I was accessing the old Records?”

Tara nodded.

“You can access them.” It wasn’t a question, but the Avatar nodded again.

“It is difficult, even for me.”

“I don’t understand how the old mirrors work. Or worked. I know how modern ones do. I’ve used the Imperial Records and the Records in the Halls of Law many times.”

“How are they different?”

Kaylin glanced at Severn, who was not only not fidgeting with the remains of his food, but was listening attentively.

“With our Records, we see what’s there. We
all
see the same thing.”

Tara nodded.

“But with these—we don’t.”

“No?”

“I asked the name of a world. Not on purpose,” she added quickly. “But I asked what world we were seeing at some point. The mirror answered. It gave Severn images—too many images, piled together all at once. It gave me…a word.”

Tara was silent for a long moment. “A word?”

“Yes. Like a…true word, but more complicated, and more dense, than any word I’ve ever seen. The only one that I think comes close—” she hesitated again “—is the name of the Dragon Outcaste.”

“You
know his name?
”

“I’ve
seen
his name. Once. I don’t think I could have said it then, if I’d tried. I couldn’t have held it against him.”

“Can you see it now, if you try?”

“Not…easily. I don’t try,” she added hastily. “Names have power, and I
do not want
his attention. But…his name was so large. The name of the world was larger still. I don’t think I saw it all. I have some idea of its general shape, but I couldn’t repro duce it. I’m not sure anyone
could
.”

Tara now turned to Severn. “You did not see this.”

“No.”

“The images?”

“People. Places. Starscapes. Storms. Oceans. More. I don’t think they would have stopped if Kaylin hadn’t asked the mirror a different question.”

“Kaylin, you asked the mirror—”

“Where it was showing me. That was its answer. But I asked other questions, and it showed me other…words. What it didn’t show me at all were the names of the worlds that I believe were lost to the Devourer.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because one of the events in the mirror involved the flight of people from a world that was facing the Devourer, and the mirror couldn’t show me anything at all of the world they’d come from. They exist, and they must have found shelter some where, because their memories of
that
event still exist.

“Tara, what do you see in the mirror? Why didn’t I see what Severn saw?”

Tara looked pointedly at Kaylin’s covered arms. “Lord Severn,” she said, “is not Chosen. Nor, in the end, am I. You are, Kaylin, and perhaps that has meaning. But the old mirrors are not like the new. They are built in a different way, and they carry a meaning that is more instantly subjective in nature.”

“Say that again?”

“You draw conclusions from what you see in the Halls of Law. You will all see the
same
thing, but you will draw different conclusions, as befit your personal experiences. But the old mirrors sometimes draw the conclusions for you. They know who you are, if you stand and observe.”

“But how is that even
possible?
”

“I know who you are. I knew who you were when you first entered the Tower, moments after I woke.”

“Yes. But
how?
”

“How?”

Kaylin nodded. Tara frowned. “How,” she finally said, “do the Tha’alani touch thought?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you breathe?”

Great. Philosophy. Changing the subject, Kaylin said, “If you ask the mirrors—your mirrors—the same questions I did, will you see the words?”

“I…do not know, Kaylin. But I think it unlikely.” She rose. “I will ask the mirror. But I think it best that you are not present.”

“Why?”

“Because I am not as you see me. What I see might influence what you see.”

“I’m not afraid of that.”

“No, you are not. But I? I am afraid of it.”

“But—but why?”

“Because I do not want to be alone,” was the quiet reply. “I want friends, I want my Lord. I want you to come to visit. I want to keep my fief—and its people—safe. Those, you understand. But I was not built to be mortal, Kaylin. I was not meant to
live
. It was a gift, but it was a chaotic gift, and I think an unintended one. I have not
used
the mirrors, until you came with your story of the Devourer.

“And when I did, I chose to reveal them—to you—in a way that other Towers would not. Other Towers draw upon information almost in sleep. It is part of what they must know. But they take only what they
must
know in order to fulfill their function.

“You changed what I could
do,
Kaylin. You gave me room to
be
. But you could not change, at base, what I
am
. And what I am, what I can be—they are not the same.” She rose. “Will you wait? If you insist, you may accompany me.”

“I’ll…wait.”

“You will be angry?”

“Yes, but not at you—I’m often angry at life, Tara. I’ll wait. But I want your answer, and we’re under a little time pressure here.”

Tara smiled. “You always are,” she said.

She came back an hour later, during which time Kaylin paced the length of the dining room. Severn had suggested, with varying degrees of politeness, that she sit down, but that had resulted in enough fidgeting that he’d given up.

When Tara returned, her eyes were an odd shade of gold; odd because the whites were actually ebony.

“What did you see?”

“Not what you saw,” she replied. “I think I saw not what existed, but the birth of the world.”

“You saw words?”

“No. Or rather, yes, but…what was left was not a Word.”

“You think it’s significant.”

“I do. But before you ask, I don’t know
how
.” She hesitated for just a moment, and then added, “But you were right. The Imperial Court has convened, briefly. It now waits for the addition of the Barrani nobles. The Emperor, however, is all but persuaded that some attempt to drain the magic in the portal area must now be attempted, and to that end…he has agreed to confer with the Arcanum.”

Kaylin blanched. If she disliked the Imperial Order of Mages—and she did, because they were so stuffy and arrogant—she loathed the Arcanum, which managed to combine those traits with actual danger.

“What—what has Tiamaris decided?”

“The Emperor is his Lord,” Tara replied quietly. “And he will accept the Emperor’s decision.”

“We all more or less accept it if we want to be more than ash—what does he
want
, Tara?”

“He wants, of course, the safety of his hoard. He is not completely convinced that these steps are either possible or necessary, but he has made this as clear as it is wise to make it. He will abide by their decision.”

Kaylin nodded. “What do you want?”

“I, too, want the safety of his hoard.” She wrapped the words around an almost self-conscious smile. “But I was created to protect my lands from the incursion of the Shadows and their change. I know of the Devourer, but I was not built to contain him.

“This means,” she added, as she saw Kaylin’s expression, “that I will not work against you, in this. I do not know what you in tend, and perhaps it is best that I remain ignorant. But what you see, Chosen, we
do not
see.”

“But aren’t we all supposed to be looking at the same thing?”

Tara smiled. “We are. But you process the information in ways that we either don’t or can’t. If you look at a desk, you see a desk. Another might see the tree that fell to compose it. In some of the ways we see the same things, we bring different information to them. It’s not wrong or right. It can be useful.”

“How?” she asked, starkly.

“I don’t know. I do not contain the full history of the Chosen, and I do not understand why they are given the marks, or even what the marks are meant to do. Words are life, literally—but you are mortal. You have life
without
the words. Therefore it is not to grant you life that the words are given.

“My…parents…did not explain the world to me, Kaylin. They did not give me your morality or your sense of ethics. No more did they give me the Draconian or Barrani versions of either. I am…new…to the life that you lead. But…I
want
it. I want my garden, and my broken streets, and my terrified people. I want my Lord, and his flight, and his fire. I want my Tower.

“I have had them, since I woke. Do you understand?”

Kaylin, clearly, didn’t. She shook her head.

“I have had the same duties and the same responsibilities for the same stretch of what you call streets, since the moment I awoke to the whisper of the Shadows. But until you came back, until you brought Tiamaris, I did not
see
them. I could not touch them. They could not touch
me
. What you saw in me—and what I saw in both you and Tiamaris, although I did not realize it at the time—changed me. And yet, it left me the same responsibilities. I see them differently, and I approach them differently—but the goal, in the end, did not—and cannot—change.

“Perhaps what you see in the world is like that. I cannot say. But I once acted in fear and in pain and in isolation, and I almost allowed my charge to be destroyed. I…do not want to act in fear or pain or isolation again.” She lifted an arm. “But you have, as you’ve said, little time. I do not know if you can prevent what will occur, in either case—the draining of the magic or the draining of the World.

“But I have no doubt at all that you must try. I will not detain you. My Lord will not return for some hours yet, much though it chafes him.”

They left the fief of Tiamaris without the usual nausea that accrued when leaving Nightshade, and they headed toward the bridge in as grim a silence as they could. It wasn’t as grim as it should have been, given the situation, because the fief had changed so much, Kaylin had to stop and at least look. The streets weren’t crowded, although it was still daylight, but they weren’t empty, either.

If traffic came from the rest of the city, it came in a different form: the bridge was being used, but it was being used by wagons, and those wagons contained not bored, malicious men, but wood, nails, supplies. There were men waiting for them on the fief side, with directions; they were armed men, but they weren’t Barren’s men. They weren’t dress guards, but they were efficient and—for the fiefs—reasonably polite.

Severn glanced at her, and then he smiled. “Evanton’s?” he asked.

She looked at the sun. It was heading toward the wrong horizon; so much of the day had already escaped in the hours spent in the Palace and the High Halls. If it hadn’t started so damn early, it would be nightfall already.

“Evanton’s. There, and then the office.”

The streets of Elani were quiet and empty. At this time of day, that felt wrong, although Kaylin knew damn well why; the people who lived here had been evacuated. Some of them had been evacuated loudly, and were standing in various offices in the Halls of Law demanding redress. And probably demanding groveling apologies, as well. It was a good day not to be an office Hawk.

They were allowed through the barricade—such as it was—without trouble, but the Swords on duty looked both tired and tense. No wonder. The only other people who seemed to be coming and going were the mages, and mages of any stripe made anyone sane wary.

Evanton was in his storefront, surrounded by beads, needles, pins, and the usual assortment of colored thread. He had the jeweler’s glass he favored—at what he called
my age
—cupped in his right eye; the left was shut in a tight squint. He hadn’t bothered to even look up when the doors chimed to let him know he had visitors.

Then again, Grethan was standing almost
in
the door, looking miserable and nervous, so Evanton was clearly not in the best of moods. She tried to remember a day when Evanton
had
been in the best of moods, and failed. She started to say as much to Grethan, but Evanton chose that moment to lift his head. With the jeweler’s glass attached to his face, he would have looked comical, if laughter hadn’t been suicidal.

“Private,” he said curtly. He shoved everything off his lap, and walked over to the counter before he remembered to remove the glass and slide it into one of the shapeless pockets of his apron.

“Have things gotten worse around here?”

“Worse in which way?” The tone of his voice made clear that the answer was yes.

She’d had a couple of long days herself. “In the usual way.”

“Which would be?”

“End of the world variants.”

He didn’t approve of her sense of humor, but his snort wasn’t up to the heat and arrogance of Dragons. “Where,” he said, “have you been?”

“All over the city. The Halls of Law. The High Halls. The Oracular Halls. The fiefs. The Imperial Palace.”

“You didn’t seek to return here.”

“Evanton—I didn’t have
time.
When I came to see you yesterday, I got spit into a great, gray void between the Garden and your shop, and I made my way back to Nightshade. With his help.”

“You wouldn’t have returned, otherwise?”

“I can’t see how.”

“I, frankly, can’t see how you managed to fall out of the world.” He spoke as if it were somehow her fault. When she stood there staring at him—and trying to decide whether or not she wanted to descend into an argument about fault—he snapped, “Are you going to stand there all day?”

She snapped her jaw shut and followed him. He led her—of course—down the crammed tiny hall toward the Elemental Garden, pausing only to hurl instructions at his poor apprentice. Severn slid in behind her; he was proof against Evanton’s temper and Evanton’s tongue for reasons that Kaylin didn’t quite understand, and managed not to resent.