Cast in Wisdom

by Michelle Sagara

  “If someone else was holding this book,” she said, “would I be able to see the Arbiter it contained?”

  One ghostly stream of irritated smoke accompanied the curt answer. “No.”

  “So you’re not really here?”

  “We are not, as you put it, really here. Unless and until you have the three Arbiters gathered, our ability to interact with the rest of you is limited. Some flexibility exists for the Arbiters if they are wakened individually.”

  “Can you tell if Starrante has been wakened?”

  “No. But in general, it was Starrante who was wakened first. It was,” she added, “Androsse who was generally last to arrive.”

  “Would that have something to do with positioning in the library itself?”

  “Yes. I am uncertain why the library is not accessible to the student body; perhaps the chancellor felt that there was enough of an emergency that it had to be secured.”

  Arbiter Androsse sighed. Loudly. “Perhaps I will consign myself to repetition,” he said. He told the Dragon Arbiter what had happened.

  * * *

  Being a Dragon, if a ghostly one, Arbiter Kavallac was severely unimpressed with the lack of detail. “You are telling me that there is no chancellor.” Her tone indicated disbelief and a rock-solid lack of any sense of humor whatsoever.

  “I’m telling you what Killian told me. And he didn’t use the word chancellor, either. I’m not sure he intended to survive the rise of the Towers.”

  “It was not the rise of the Towers,” Androsse said quietly. “But the fall of Ravellon. For Killian—for most of those assembled here in one fashion or another—the loss of Ravellon would be like the loss of a beating heart for one of your nature. You have never seen it.”

  “No. The loss happened long before my time. Whatever once dwelled within Ravellon is gone...” she frowned “...or enslaved. That’s not our problem here. Killian is still alive. The Academia still, in some form, exists. But the place we’re in now—it’s like your primal ether. We call it the outlands.”

  “That should not be possible,” Kavallac said. “But demonstrably you are here, and we, for the moment, are here, as well. More discussion is required.”

  “If the intruders found Starrante—”

  “It would be almost impossible for the intruders to find Starrante if they were not already aware of his existence.”

  Kaylin cleared her throat. “I found Arbiter Androsse without being aware of his existence.” The Dragon clearly felt that this should be impossible; Androsse’s presence, however, belied that. “Arbiter Androsse found you. If Starrante’s book isn’t where either of you expect it should be, could you find it?”

  The two Arbiters exchanged a glance. “It is possible, but by no means guaranteed,” the Dragon finally said. “Our abilities at this stage are, as I said, limited. If the intruders have Starrante, it is possible we lack the power to liberate him.”

  “If they hold your books, do they effectively hold you?”

  “Before the books are opened, yes.” The Dragon’s smile was deeply unpleasant. “What do you think? You hold both books; are you up to controlling or commanding us?”

  Kaylin shook her head.

  It was Androsse who said, “You have not tried, Chosen. It is my belief that you could, in fact, control our actions should you make that attempt.”

  “Because I’m Chosen?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Well, they’re not. That I know of,” she added. “Do you know the word on his book?”

  They both stared at her.

  “...On the cover of each of yours, there’s a word. A rune.”

  “Different runes?” Androsse asked.

  She nodded.

  “I invite you to examine the books now.”

  Kaylin did.

  “Do you still see a rune?”

  She nodded. The runes were part of the front covers of each book; they hadn’t vanished when she’d opened them. Nor had they risen or deserted the books in question when the Arbiters had appeared. Their looks and shapes hadn’t changed; the color of the golden light had dimmed—but that could be a trick of the light, which remained poor.

  Turning the covers toward the Arbiters, she said, “Can you see it?”

  The glance they exchanged implied no.

  She returned the books to their temporary resting place. “Let me ask a different question, then. I’ve been tasked with opening the library, right?”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “How, if the library is closed, is anyone supposed to open it? I’m assuming they don’t walk through walls the way I did.”

  “The library is never closed to the chancellor.”

  “I’ve been told that no chancellor exists. Look—I was never a student here.”

  “Demonstrably,” Kavallac said.

  “I live in a sentient building. I’ve visited the Hallionne. I understand a bit about how they work—but at least my home doesn’t have rooms that have to be opened using magical books that are inside the room.”

  “No, but your building does not exist in the primal ether.”

  “It can, but that’s not where it’s rooted—and it’s irrelevant for the purposes of the library. If there’s no chancellor...” She frowned. “If Killian is sleeping, and there is no chancellor, how might he be awakened? The Arkon said—”

  “The Arkon?” Kavallac said, voice sharp.

  Right. Dragon. The Arkon wasn’t a person, but a title. “He’s the oldest of the Dragons who are currently awake. He was a student here, before—”

  “When?”

  “Toward the end. His name—or the name it’s safe to call him—is Lannagaros.”

  “And young Lannagaros is now the Arkon?”

  “That’s mostly what he’s called now, yes. He was a student—”

  “I am aware of that. Even Androsse must remember him. Continue.”

  Since it was Kavallac who had interrupted, her irritation struck Kaylin as unfair. Then again, so did life on some days. “The Arkon said that there was an emergency chancellor, a fill-in, when the chancellor of the time was drawn into the Draco-Barrani wars.”

  “And it was under Terramonte’s stewardship that Ravellon fell?”

  “I...think so?” Kaylin forced herself not to wilt, but her tone implied a wealth of ignorance, which was fair: she was ignorant. Her sense of history was so compressed and so vague that she had no clear idea of how that war had even started. She’d seen some of the cost of it in Teela and the cohort; she’d seen the fall of the High Halls.

  But she had also seen their rise, their renewal. She had seen the cohort home.

  If given time, she would sit down beside the Arkon—or at his feet—and try to separate the strands of that ancient history into something more closely resembling an actual timeline. She had known that the Arkon was old; she had never imagined that his distant youth would have encompassed the fall of Ravellon.

  Her ignorance didn’t change facts. The facts remained, hidden and out of reach. It was her job to find facts, to sift through them to find those that were relevant or meaningful.

  She lifted her chin, met Kavallac’s gaze, and said, “The Arkon is here. I told you that two Dragons accompanied me into the library. He was one of them.”

  * * *

  “Did he come prepared for combat?”

  “I’m not sure what that means,” Kaylin replied. “He’s a Dragon. In the city as it exists outside of the Academia, being a Dragon is all that’s required for combat. Most combat.”

  “Very well. That is not a promising reply, but it is acceptable.” She began to walk.

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  “I am going to speak with the Arkon,” Kavallac replied.

  “To speak with the Arkon, we have to pass through the other
three intruders.”

  “No,” the Dragon replied. “We do not. Androsse?”

  Arbiter Androsse grimaced. “I had forgotten how much I enjoy solitude.”

  Kavallac began to transform.

  Chapter 23

  This transformation was unlike the transformation most Dragons underwent, to Kaylin’s eye. The uncomfortable transitional moments where skin became scale and limbs both elongated and bent in directions that would have caused severe injuries in any other race were missing in their entirety. One moment, Kavallac was a woman about seven or eight inches taller than Kaylin, and the next, she was an amorphous cloud. The spread of cloud or fog continued—at speed—until the entire area in immediate view was covered in it.

  The fog then solidified, all of it drawn into the hardening lines of a ghostly Dragon.

  “Climb,” the Dragon said.

  “I will walk,” Arbiter Androsse replied. “Chosen?”

  Kaylin looked up—pointedly—at a ceiling she couldn’t quite see.

  “It is best that you accept Kavallac’s kind offer. Hold the books, Chosen. And if it is possible, while you are airborne, read the words.”

  “The runes?”

  “The runes that adorn the covers of these books.”

  “It’s not possible while I’m in flight. If you want me to try, I’ll need to stand here for a bit.”

  “I will not drop you if your attention is momentarily elsewhere.”

  It wouldn’t be momentary. Kaylin, books clutched in one arm, attempted to climb the Dragon’s back. To her surprise, the ghostly and translucent body was also rock-solid. Kavallac’s Draconic form was as real as Bellusdeo’s would have been.

  Kaylin doubted that Bellusdeo would attempt to fly in this room, though. The ceilings that she had seen in the glow of the Arkon’s summoned light were high—but not, in Kaylin’s opinion, high enough. She wasn’t about to argue with Kavallac’s certainty that they were, though.

  The thing I don’t understand, Kaylin said to Nightshade as she seated herself, is Killian. We’re in the outlands, or the primal ether—whatever it’s called. You—and a couple of other Barrani—are here, and you still have your names.

  The names are anchored to us; we are inseparable.

  She nodded. But... Killian is here. There are words here. The... Arbiters are here. Larrantin, in some form, is here. Let’s ignore the question of True Names. If Killian is, like Helen, composed of and driven by the words at his core, those words shouldn’t lose their power. Killian is alive.

  Yes.

  So the prohibition—or the inability—is based on the speaking of words, or the speaking of words that grant life, in the outlands.

  I believe that is what has been said. I also believe that the roots that you speak of are bound by form. My True Name is mine. It is rooted in me. I am of our plane of existence, even here. To shift that, to change it, requires time—time that the cohort had in their slow transformation over the centuries. Time and will.

  The Arkon’s True Name is likewise rooted and preserved. But Killian’s is not. The physical body he possesses requires external anchors, external roots. He cannot move those roots; no more can the Hallionne. Killian was cast into the outlands by the very nature of the Towers that rose.

  But if he’s a building—

  He was not built to withstand the Shadows, Nightshade replied. I believe he wishes to speak with you.

  He’s becoming more...more awake, isn’t he?

  I believe so.

  “The words themselves both provide power and sustenance, and require it. They were, for the Ancients, the very source of life, and even in smaller fragments, they are potent. You are not wed to those fragments—you and your kin. We are. But we are wrought from the story of the world itself; we are not added to it. What is the question you wish to ask?”

  Kaylin drew breath; Nightshade did not. “Was it the Towers? When they rose, did the Towers anchor you somehow, so that you might survive their creation?”

  “That is my belief.”

  “If you’re anchored to the Towers, can you speak with them?”

  One eye narrowed, as he only had the one. “That is not a question that occurred me to ask,” he finally said.

  Robin’s hand shot up. “I need to use the bathroom,” he said. This was not what Kaylin expected.

  “Very well. You have permission.” August permission, indeed.

  Robin left his seat and headed out of Nightshade’s line of sight, but Nightshade marked this, as well.

  Does he do this often?

  I would say it depends on how bored he is. Since the classes themselves repeat, and by your own estimation he has been here for some time, I would imagine that boredom has become a pressing issue for him.

  I need you to ask another question. She looked down past her feet to see the crowning heights of shelves pass beneath them. She could not believe that she could be here—on a Dragon’s back—and bypass unwelcome intruders unseen. But apparently, this was a different version of reality; she tensed and held breath—as if her breath would be the most notable thing in the library—as the three Barrani intruders passed beneath her.

  What question? Ask.

  “Can you make that attempt? Can you try to speak with the Towers?”

  He stared at her. Not at Nightshade, who had theoretically voiced the question, but at Kaylin, who was behind his eyes.

  “What material benefit would that have?” he finally asked.

  “It would—” Nightshade then took over, it being his mouth and his voice. “It would establish parameters—physical parameters. If the Academia survived the fall of Ravellon and the ascendance of the last and greatest of our defenses against what now dwells there, it is possible that the presence of the Academia itself can be strengthened.”

  “To what end, Chosen?”

  Since those words had been Nightshade’s, she grimaced. The fieflord’s face bore no trace of that grimace. “I think you need to be in control of yourself. You’re outside of the Tower’s duties and responsibilities. They aren’t set to watch against you or guard against you. And I think at least one of the six was aware of you, and valued you highly. At least one.” She shook her head; Nightshade again remained still.

  Yes, he said with some amusement. I have some dignity and wish to retain it.

  “There’s a border zone between each of the territories protected by the Towers. It’s shifting; it’s not static. I think—or smarter people than I think—that it’s part of the outlands. Part of,” she corrected herself, “the primal ether.

  “I think you were valued highly by one of the Towers, but on ascension, all of the Towers agreed to somehow help anchor you, to maintain some element of your presence or life. They might have thought you couldn’t do it on your own, if the words—”

  “They would be correct,” he said quietly. “You are...in the library.”

  “I am. I have Arbiter Androsse and Arbiter Kavallac with me; we are searching for Arbiter Starrante.”

  He closed his eyes, one luminous, one a void. She could see his hair begin to move in the windless room; could see a faint glow as it outlined the whole of his body. His mouth moved, but silently, or quietly enough that she couldn’t hear his words. Given that the ears she was currently borrowing were Barrani, she assumed the former.

  “Arbiter Starrante is not situated within the library at this current time.”

  “Do you know where he is situated?”

  “He has not been removed from the Academia, although it is possible that such removal has been tried. Keep the Arbiters with you, if that is at all possible. I can hear them, and through them, Chosen, you. There is more life in the Academia than there has been in far too long.” His smile changed the contours of his face. “Ah, I believe I hear Lannagaros. It has been long, indeed, for Lannagaros.

&n
bsp; “Too long, I think.” The smile fled his face as he opened his eyes and stared through the window Nightshade had become. “If you intend to attempt to repair me, as you once repaired others, you will be frustrated beyond endurance. I do not have, as the Towers or your...Helen...do, a central core, a central heart. When I was built—and that is a crude word that will only barely suffice because time is scant—I was not built the same way.

  “But if you have been tasked with opening the library—and I will not ask by whom—I feel that you will come to understand this, in time. If you survive. I...do not see the intruders to whom Kavallac refers.” He smiled again, but this smile was softer and more careworn. “I do not believe you will accomplish what you hope to accomplish.”

  “You don’t think we can get the library open?”

  “That was not the goal to which I referred. Now go. You are interrupting my lecture.”

  * * *

  Kaylin. It was Severn. His voice reached her the moment Killian dismissed her—and it was a dismissal.

  She nodded.

  We have a...guest.

  What do you mean?

  A young man. An older child. He looked—was looking—in the direction of that child. It was Robin.

  I thought you were in the endless hall?

  Terrano felt it best to move. Mandoran agreed. I believe it was Annarion who opened the actual door that led to ascending stairs, but if so, he didn’t remain. Emmerian agreed with Terrano; I think he’s beginning to worry about Bellusdeo and the Arkon, although he’s voiced no obvious concern. The halls were designed to be a pleasant trap—something that would confine those who required confinement without, in theory, causing harm or offense. Apparently, at random intervals, food will appear in the side rooms.

  There’d been no food in the side rooms when Kaylin had been trapped there. Did you catch the gist of the conversation Killian and I had?

  I did. I’ve passed it on to Mandoran. They are now looking for either a book or a ghost. He said this last with a hint of humor. What do you think their chances are?

  Higher than ours, to be honest.