Cast in Wisdom

by Michelle Sagara

  Kaylin and Severn, Bellusdeo in tow, crossed the Ablayne by the bridge that led into the fief of Tiamaris. Under the rule of Tiamaris, the fief itself had changed; even the bridge, while sparsely crowded, seemed to be a natural part of the city. As fieflord, he had applied the laws of the Empire—with a few notable exceptions—to the citizens of the fief, and he had started to hire tradesmen to repair the damages the fief had undergone when Barren’s dubious control had finally allowed Shadows to enter the fief.

  Since Dragons in their more or less human forms weren’t recognized by most of Elantra’s citizens at a distance, Bellusdeo didn’t cause concern. Maggaron, however, did. His presence on the walk to the bridge meant there was a lot of room in the streets; at almost eight feet in height, he garnered apprehensive attention. He was walking with two Hawks, which might have lessened the fear, but Kaylin was willing to bet her own money that the Swords would be fielding reports.

  There was no one across the bridge who would report him; it was in Tiamaris that the remainder of his surviving people lived. They lived near the border between Ravellon and Tiamaris, and they stood guard against the Shadows that had already destroyed their homeland. In Tiamaris, this was known. Yes, the size of the Norannir was intimidating—but they looked like very large people, not Shadow.

  Nor did the tabard of the Hawk cause either resentment or fear, although here and there it caused curiosity, followed by lectures—some loud, some hissed whispers—from the parents or grandparents of those brave enough to express it.

  Kaylin often answered the young-child questions, not because Severn was terrible with children—he wasn’t—but because she was smaller; size and gender made her look like much less of a threat. To the children asking, neither she nor Severn was dangerous; to the parents or grandparents, however, it was different.

  This was the biggest change in Tiamaris, to Kaylin’s eye.

  Children who felt safe expressed curiosity this way.

  In Nightshade, curiosity had been death.

  And maybe she was judging the entirety of the fief from her personal experience with it. Same way she’d judged Barren. But Barren was now Tiamaris, and its Tower was now Tara’s; she’d been given free rein to express herself and her own desires, and now had vegetable gardens practically in the streets surrounding the looming white edifice.

  “Do you want to inspect the border?” Kaylin asked Bellusdeo.

  “Not really.” The Dragon smiled and glanced at Maggaron, who had somehow managed not to terrify children into invisibility. “You might want to look in the other direction, though.”

  “Which other direction—Oh.”

  Bellusdeo carefully removed her clothing. Maggaron held out both hands, and she dumped its various layers into them. He could do this and avert his gaze, which he did. He didn’t seem embarrassed, though. That took more effort, not that Bellusdeo was against that.

  It was not illegal for Dragons to be Draconic in Tiamaris. And it was not illegal for Dragons to take to the sky in their second form. Bellusdeo, mindful of the damage done to clothing—or perhaps the cost of replacing it—didn’t seem to care all that much if she stood in the streets exposed and stark naked—but even in that form, there was little in the streets that could harm her. Plus, she had Maggaron. And Severn. And Kaylin.

  Kaylin was grateful that she’d waited until there were no small children close at hand. The Dragon pushed off the ground with her wings bunched close to her back; she spread them as she gained height. Her shadow shrank as she gained distance.

  “I wish,” Kaylin said softly, “that the Emperor would nix the law about Dragons in flight above the city.”

  “She doesn’t understand it, either. But the city is the Emperor’s, and she accepts that.”

  “I think she’d be happier if she could do this more often.”

  Maggaron said nothing.

  “You don’t?”

  “I don’t know. She is...not what she was, when she ruled.” He glanced at Kaylin. “I am grateful for you. The problems you face are new to her. They are no less dangerous, and they require some attention. She is allowed to face most of them by your side, and given the nature of some of your enemies, she doesn’t have the time to think about...” He trailed off.

  “What will she do?” Kaylin asked as Bellusdeo circled the boundaries of Tiamaris from above.

  “She will do what she must. She has always done what she must.”

  “And after?”

  “And after, I think it would almost be better for her if she found—if she took—a fief Tower for herself.”

  Kaylin shook her head. “It’s too close to Ravellon.”

  “Perhaps. But that, Chosen, is the war she was trained—and raised—to fight. She knows no other.”

  * * *

  Tara was in her gardening clothing when the Tower’s base came into view. This would be because she was in her garden. Morse was standing guard, but Morse was decorative. This close to the Tower, there was little that could harm Tara. Tara, like Helen, was an Avatar, a way of interacting with the people of Tiamaris.

  There were residents in similar gardening clothing who were at work; some were too young to be truly helpful, and some old enough they required more rest. None seemed afraid to see the Hawks or the Norannir.

  Morse came to greet them. “Things have been pretty quiet.”

  “And you’re bored?”

  “Not bored, exactly.” Morse shrugged. “I don’t trust the quiet.” Her grin was brief. Dark. It was also hard to maintain when Tara was near. “It never stays quiet around you, you know?”

  “I’m not bringing trouble with me.”

  “Why’re you here, then?”

  “To speak with Tiamaris.”

  “Emperor sent you?”

  “The Hawklord. We’re only here to learn what Tiamaris knows.”

  Morse snorted. “You’ve got a year or ten?”

  “About the fiefs. Not his,” Kaylin added. “But a neighbor’s. Did you know Tiamaris spent some time entering various fiefs—as research?”

  “I’d heard.”

  “He told you?”

  Morse shook her head. “Tara did. She likes to talk. Sometimes she likes to talk a lot.” Kaylin winced. Morse had never been even remotely chatty. “She’s giving lessons; she’ll be done soon.”

  “Do you know where Tiamaris is?”

  Morse shaded her eyes and looked up. “I know where he will be, soon.”

  * * *

  Tara took a break after a quarter of an hour, by which time there were two Dragons in the air. One was gold. One was, hmmm, bronze? It was harder to pinpoint the color. Kaylin was pretty certain she’d seen red scales on at least one of them.

  “Yes,” Tara said as she approached. “The colors can shift when the Dragon is under duress. As the Dragons age, that shift is less likely—although I am told the colors deepen or change with age. Tiamaris is considered young by his kin.”

  “But Bellusdeo has always been gold.”

  “Bellusdeo is female.” Before Kaylin could speak, she added, “I believe the female of any species is somewhat mysterious to the nonfemales of the same species.”

  “Meaning you don’t know?”

  “I know what my Lord knows.”

  “Well...” She watched the Dragons cross paths. It was almost playful.

  “They are conversing,” Tara said, her voice softer. “My Lord worries about Bellusdeo.”

  “About her decision?”

  “No. He trusts that she will accept the responsibility of being, of becoming—however temporarily—the mother of her race. But...he does not think it will make her happy.”

  “You think he’s right.”

  “I don’t know for certain,” Tara replied. “I don’t know what makes people happy or unhappy. I don’t know why some children can be
happy in my garden, and some resent being forced to be here—it is the same activity for both. I understand that there are variances in personality, but I don’t understand what creates those variances.

  “And no, Kaylin,” she added, although Kaylin hadn’t spoken a word, “I don’t think Dragons are more complicated than humans, Norannir or Barrani. They have different concerns.”

  “And can hold longer grudges.”

  Tara shook her head. “I think very few can hold a grudge as intensely as Morse can.”

  “Yes, but that’s decades—that’s all we have.”

  “Is that how you see it?”

  “That’s not how you do?”

  “No. I think Morse can hold a grudge for the entirety of her life.”

  “Which is shorter—”

  “I’m not sure it feels different from the inside, but I admit that I know far fewer Immortals.”

  Morse cleared her throat. “I’m standing right here,” she told them both; the sharp edge of her glare was aimed at Kaylin.

  “We know,” Tara said.

  Morse snorted. “She forgets a lot, doesn’t she?”

  “You’re going to criticize her manners?”

  Morse chuckled. “Not hers, no.”

  Right. “Do you understand what Bellusdeo needs?”

  “I have been trying,” Tara confessed. She didn’t look up to the sky, but it wasn’t necessary; she could see what was happening. If Helen was Kaylin’s House, Tara was, in some fashion, the fief itself.

  “My powers at the edge of my borders are very weak,” Tara then said. “If Bellusdeo were a Hallionne or a Tower, I would have far better guesses. But even the Towers and Hallionne differ. We have one imperative; that imperative produces necessary rules. But beyond those? Happiness is just as elusive as it is for you. Or Morse.

  “And sometimes, in our attempts to find that happiness, we make mistakes; we confuse want with happiness. We discover that they are not the same, often at our peril.”

  “She wants to be here.”

  “She wants to be fighting Shadow. She wants to be part of the council of war that is concerned with Shadow, yes. But she wants that, I think, because she is confident that she has much to offer in that regard. The only other thing about which she can be certain is the continuation of her race.

  “She is lonely.”

  Kaylin opened her mouth and shut it again.

  Tara nodded anyway. “Hatchlings might make her life busier, but I am not at all certain they would make it less lonely.”

  “What would?”

  Tara hesitated, which was unusual for the Tower. “Come,” she finally said. “Your stomach is making noise, and Morse has to eat, as well.” She then turned to Severn and said, “Good morning, Corporal.”

  * * *

  Tiamaris returned to join them in the small dining hall. Bellusdeo was not with him.

  “She has gone to the border to visit her people,” Tara said in response to Kaylin’s wordless observation. To Kaylin, this was much like being at home.

  “Tara says you’ve come to ask questions about my early years investigating the fiefs.” He spoke to both Severn and Kaylin as he joined them at the table. Morse had eaten and vacated her chair; she took up a position by the door. Her posture was casual—she was leaning against the wall with folded arms—but she was, in theory, a guard here.

  Kaylin nodded. “We have experience in the fiefs because we were born in them. But Nightshade is not the fief we’ve been sent to investigate.”

  “I assume it is not Tiamaris, either.”

  “No. Inasmuch as a fieflord is trusted—by the Halls of Law—Tiamaris is trusted.” She wanted to add that if all fieflords were Dragons, maybe all of the fiefs would feel like part of the city proper. It was a nice thought, but even if that had been Imperial intent, there weren’t enough Dragons. The Arkon would never be pried from the library, and the Emperor would never be beholden to a Tower.

  “We want to know what you learned of Candallar—or what you know now. He borders Tiamaris.”

  “Finish eating your meal; we will retire to the mirror room before I attempt to answer any questions you have.”

  * * *

  “Candallar’s been hanging out in the warrens,” Kaylin said as they walked down the long, wide halls that led to the pool of water Tara called a mirror. Although Elantra proper was full of mirrors in various sizes, Tara—like Helen—considered their presence an unacceptable security risk. Understanding that Kaylin and Tiamaris considered them a necessity, the two buildings had created single rooms in which they reluctantly allowed mirror messages to both enter and leave their domain.

  Tiamaris exhaled a thin stream of smoke, but said nothing. His eyes were orange, but orange was the standard Dragon color when discussing the fiefs.

  “He’s not like Nightshade.”

  “You’ve met him.”

  “We have.” She nodded in Severn’s direction.

  “It is my understanding that the mortal Hawks are not responsible for the warrens.”

  “We had the cohort; Teela was off duty. And we had Bellusdeo.”

  This did cause a shift in eye color, and not in the good direction.

  “Have you ever tried to say no to her when she wants something the Emperor has specifically already said she can have?”

  He grimaced, his eye color lightening. “What was Candallar doing in the warrens?”

  “On hearsay, he was waiting to meet with a Barrani High Lord or two.”

  “Would this meeting have occurred around the same time as the reconfiguration of the High Halls?”

  “Yes. How much have you heard?”

  “Not much. Tara was not concerned with the change in the building’s state. She considered it an unexpectedly good sign. If Candallar was involved—”

  “Any good that came out of his involvement was accidental.” Kaylin then detailed what she could remember about Candallar, his Barrani connections, and Spike, a Shadow who’d worked with them to preserve the High Halls. Hope was dangling across both shoulders looking bored when Tara interrupted her.

  “You are saying that the fieflord of Candallar allowed a Lord of the High Court to enter Ravellon through his domain?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that Lord then found Spike and carried him across the border?”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “And Spike remained in the High Halls.”

  “I think he’d be willing to talk to us if we visited. He knows a lot about Ravellon. But he said...” She trailed off, uncertain of how to proceed. Tara was militant about Shadow in the same way Bellusdeo was—but there was less flexibility in Tara’s response because Tara’s purpose as a Tower was the defense against, and destruction of, Shadow.

  “That is true.” The doors to the mirror room faded. Standing beside the rounded lip of the pool’s circumference was the Avatar of the Tower. She was not wearing gardening clothing; her robes were a long, loose drape of pale ivory and green. Her eyes, as she turned them toward her lord and his approaching guests, were obsidian.

  “Bellusdeo was controlled by Shadow for—actually, I don’t know how long it was, objectively speaking. Maggaron was controlled in a similar fashion. They’re not controlled now. And Spike seemed happy not to be enslaved.”

  “And you now believe that we could somehow free all of Shadow?” Tara’s tone did not encourage optimism.

  “I just think—”

  “You can barely survive one of the individual Shadows when it crosses the inner boundary,” Tiamaris cut in. “If what you believe is true—and I am willing to lend it credence—it is functionally irrelevant. To get to the enslaver, you would have to fight through the slaves—and the slaves are more dangerous than you could ever hope to be.”

  “That is not entirely true,” Tara then said, her voi
ce gentling. “She is Chosen.”

  “You have never explained what that means, in a practical sense.”

  “We do not fully understand it ourselves, my Lord.” She then looked at the still surface of clear water. Her eyes lost the look and texture of black stone as the water began to move. “But it is true that the Barrani—the High Court, the High Lords, and perhaps Candallar himself—don’t understand the Shadows, either.”

  “They expected Spike to be of use. And he probably was, at least briefly. He’s like a portable memory crystal and portable Records rolled into one, but he...” Kaylin hesitated, trying to choose the right words, or any words at all, to describe what had occurred when the cohort had fled into the outlands.

  Spike had not been small, portable or harmless there.

  She didn’t need to find the right words in Tiamaris. Tara could see what she was attempting to squeeze into Elantran with so much difficulty. The mirror responded to Tara, and the image of that giant Spike—with a Kaylin-size Barrani, probably Sedarias, by his side—appeared.

  “In the High Halls, as well?”

  “In the Tower of testing, yes. He looked different in the Tower, but he was about the same size.”

  “He is dangerous.”

  “He didn’t—”

  “He could meld with you so completely he could not be detected by the Tower of Candallar. And he could become this, as well. Doing so in the outlands is impressive, but it is not dangerous in the same fashion, for reasons I’m sure you understand.”

  Kaylin didn’t.

  Tara, gaze focused on Spike, continued. “Candallar’s Tower allowed the Lord into Ravellon. The Lord returned bearing Spike. He then released Spike, who flew—at speed—to where you were, in the West March, across the continent. What did you do to free Spike?”

  “I think—nothing? I think Terrano did that.”

  “I believe we would like to speak with Terrano.”

  Kaylin thought the chances of that pretty low, given the fieflord was a Dragon. They weren’t zero, because Terrano still lived with her, but it wasn’t to speak of Spike or Terrano that she’d come to Tiamaris.