He looked up. He looked up and remembered that there were no walls. He met eyes that were round, gold, and lower to the ground than he had expected. It was an animal of some kind, the size of a large cat, the size of a small dog—the scrappy kind, not the hunters. Its fur was a silvered brown, and over the slight curve of its back, a very bushy tail rose.
Carver caught the direction of the talking animal’s gaze. “A ring.”
The creature blinked then. He nodded his head, which was at least a third of his size. “Well met.”
Ellerson inclined his head. He shifted position, folding his legs in a very Southern obeisance. He did not rise fully, did not tender the small, furred creature a proper bow, or what would have been a proper bow in Averalaan. The creature tilted its head as he met Ellerson’s steady gaze.
“I heard you,” he said.
“If we have disturbed you or your slumber, it was entirely unintentional.”
“It is certainly novel,” the creature replied. “But it has been Winter for far too long. Tell me, what is that that you bear?”
“A gift of sorts,” Ellerson replied. “And, as all gifts, it demands a measure of respect.”
“Respect?”
“It cannot be discarded or traded as if it were simply an item for barter.”
The creature laughed. It was a higher pitch of sound than Carver was accustomed to hearing from talking, furred creatures. “No, indeed. Even were you so foolish, it would not be possible.”
“Oh?”
“The rings you bear were made for you. They cannot be so easily transferred. They cannot be so easily removed. Were I of a mind to claim them—and I am not, if that sets your mind at ease—I could devour you whole, except for the hand upon which that ring is situated.”
“Ah.”
“You do not understand what you bear?” Long whiskers twitched. “I see that you do not. Nor, I imagine, do you understand what I see in it, either.”
“What do you see?” Carver asked, when the question failed to emerge from the domicis.
“Ah, no, no, no, that will not do. Are you a child?” The furry face was not a human face; it was not a grim, cold Arianni face, either. The lines and muscles around mouth and eyes did not move into expressions that were easily translated into ones Carver knew. But he had had experience with the great, winged cats—or great winged brats, as Angel often called them.
“I’m not certain. How do you define child?”
“Cozened. Protected. Ignorant.” The creature tilted its head.
“But not young?”
“Youth is relative. Are the trees young? Are the distant mountains? Is the earth upon which you so carelessly rest?” The question was clearly rhetorical. “This is not the safest of places to rest,” he continued, speaking to Ellerson.
“Perhaps not. But in the wilderness, there is very little safety.”
“For such as you, yes. Tell me, is it Scarran? Lattan? It has been long and longer since I have seen your kind in these lands.”
Ellerson, however, inclined his head. “As you must understand, time passes differently between our lands.”
“Time passes, in yours.” The creature’s voice was lower, deeper, a hint of growl informing the words that now left him. His fur had risen, adding height and the illusion of size.
“My companion asked a question of you. You have asked a question of us. I propose an exchange of information.”
The fur lowered slowly and not completely. “Only one of you is a child.” Turning to glare at Carver, he added, “If you wish to claim otherwise, there is only one interpretation of your behavior.”
“What behavior?”
“You asked a question of import.”
“I asked a question, yes.”
“Of import.”
“. . . Of import.”
“You either expected an answer because you believed I was stupid—an insult, manchild, to my kind—or you expected an answer because you feel that I am insignificant, that your power is the greater power.”
“I asked a question,” Carver countered, “because I believed you were more knowledgeable.”
“And indeed I am, but that would not be particularly difficult. Your companion is wiser. I would advise you to let him speak for both of you—where that is possible. There are passages through the high wilderness where it will not be, although that is largely irrelevant. You will not survive to reach it.”
Carver said nothing then, but it was hard. He trusted Ellerson, but Ellerson’s instincts weren’t Jay’s. No one’s were. But as Jay had said, often, her voice broken with guilt and pain and loss, her instincts were only guaranteed to save her.
No, Jay, he thought. They had saved Finch. They had saved Teller. They had saved Arann. Yes, they had not saved the others, and death and time had taken them—but they had not been useless, not wasted. Haval had said, often, that Jay could not save everyone, that she had to accept that.
And how do I judge? she’d asked.
You don’t. Accept that you will do more good than harm. Were it not for your gift, none of your den would have survived.
You can’t know that.
No, Jewel. I can know it. You cannot.
He shook himself. Ellerson was speaking.
“If you are aware that time passes differently in our two worlds, you will know that I do not have an answer.”
The creature was silent, waiting.
“But I will nonetheless hazard an educated guess in return for an explanation of what you see when you look at these rings.”
“And if I lie?”
“I will have very little way of ascertaining that. But I might lie, as well. There is always a measure of good faith in an exchange of information.”
The creature laughed. And it was a laugh, not the cat hiss of sound that passed for one. As he laughed, he changed.
Snow clung to his fur as his body grew larger, and larger again; his back retained its rounded curve, but where it had been close to the ground, it was now feet from it. The dusting of silvered fur gave way almost fully to a gold-tinted brown, and the shape of the face changed, the point of ears gentling their line to a roundness and a width that they had not possessed before. The small paws that had been almost buried in the snow now broke it with their size and the weight they supported.
“You are mortal indeed if you believe that. Or perhaps you have only bargained with mortals. They once hewed the forests, and burned them, and made homes of their corpses. Do they still?”
“Not forests such as these,” Ellerson replied.
The creature laughed again. It was a warm sound, and had he not been so large, his fangs so prominent, it might have been a welcoming one. “You amuse me. It has been an age since I last laughed; laughter is a gift. We do not like to be indebted to anyone, and as you have given me a gift, I will return the favor.” The creature’s voice was lower now, a rumble of sound.
“You are being hunted here. This place is not what it once was; it is waking as we speak. Very few are those who could find their way here—and you bear the rings that mark you as the property of one of them. Should she find you, I believe you will be safe—but she is not here, and she is not hunting.
“There are others, however, who were guests here when the world was awake. And one at least has found a pathway into this place. I do not know how, and it is not my concern; he would not attempt to harm me.” The bear—there was no other word for it—tilted his head. “Or he would not have before we met. I am not certain how much of your scent will cling to me, now that we have.
“But come. I would not lose my first source of amusement in eons to him. Not immediately.” And speaking this, he turned on his haunches and ambled away, looking pointedly over his shoulder when Carver and Ellerson failed to immediately follow. The domicis, however, took the time necessary to pack what few essentials they had that were not already contained in their backpacks before he obeyed what was essentially a command.
Chapter Ni
ne
IN THE ORACLE’S ABODE, darkness could be absolute; there were no windows through which light could shine.
“You need to sleep,” Shadow said. He lay sprawled across the bed, ignoring the inconvenient placement of the person who was actually in it.
“I was asleep for almost three days, Shadow.”
“That wasn’t sleep, stupid girl.”
Jewel was exhausted, and in the darkness, guilt was the whole of her world.
“You are stupid,” the great cat replied. He lifted his head, which made it easier to breathe. Or move.
“Always,” Jewel told him. “When I dream now, I can’t see you.”
“No.”
“Why? Why could you walk into my dreams before?”
Shadow sniffed. Jewel thought his lack of answer meant he didn’t know. “Your dreams are different now. Sometimes you go where I can’t follow.”
“Can you follow me at the beginning? When I fall asleep?”
Shadow hissed. It wasn’t laughter, but it wasn’t injured dignity. It was an entirely different sound. In the darkness, the cat seemed larger. But his fur was still soft, and he was warm. A little too warm. “You need to sleep.”
“Did I kill those people?”
“Does it matter? There are so many people. If you do not sleep, you will become even weaker.” He snorted. “And then they will all die.”
“It matters,” Jewel said. And then, voice softer, she added, “I don’t know why you ask me questions when you already know the answer.”
Shadow lowered his head again. He growled. “Because you need to remember the answer. You need to think it. You need to say it.” His voice fell into a more familiar whine as he added, “It would be easier if your answers weren’t boring. Now go to sleep. Or we will die of boredom.”
There was, about the gray cat’s expression—most of which was carried in his voice—something familiar. It was fractious, difficult, required patience and tolerance, but it was something she wanted. Needed. She reached up, placed her hand on his head, and began to scratch behind his ears. The motion was soothing; the cat’s fur was soft. Like a small cat’s fur, not like a predator’s.
She slept.
• • •
She dreamed.
• • •
Her hand was still on Shadow’s head when she opened her eyes. She knew she was not awake.
She stood in the streets of Averalaan Aramarelas. As a child, she had dreamed of crossing the bridge to the Isle, of being able to afford the toll to do so. She had assumed—what had she assumed? That the streets were paved with gold? That the god-born Twin Kings were actual deities? They might as well have been. If there were gods, they didn’t hear the prayers of the poor and disenfranchised in the hundred holdings.
She would have said as much to Shadow, but the gray cat was fading.
She wanted to hold on to him and tried. In dreams, dignity wasn’t a given; she didn’t much care if people stared at her while she threw her arms around Shadow’s neck.
She felt cold. Heat. Physical sensation at a remove, the way it sometimes was in dreams. She wanted the cat here. And here he remained, but it took effort. She knew the effort was successful when his voice became louder. And whinier.
“Better,” the cat told her, when he had relieved himself of his opinions about her general intelligence. “This is better.”
She was standing outside of the entrance to a building she recognized: the Guild of Makers. Some considered it the most powerful guild in the Empire; more powerful by far than the Merchants’ Guild.
The maker-born, however, were not political. Gilafas ADelios was the nominal head of the guild and was rumored to be the guild’s only living Artisan. Jewel had met him a handful of times, but only one was significant: he had come to her on the first day of The Terafin’s funeral rites, drawn by sight of the dress she had worn that day. It was the dress Snow had made.
On that day, he had been at his most absent, his most socially irregular. She had seen him at a distance in the gatherings her position forced her to attend; there he looked like a slightly bored, slightly irritable, older patrician. On the first day of the funeral, he had seemed almost childlike in his fascination. That fascination had led him to examine the dress from all angles, without thought for distance or his own dignity.
She had never seen him so engaged.
Shadow said, “I’m bored.”
Jewel, accustomed to this, exhaled. The people in the streets were dream people. She knew, somehow. This was a dream. “Why,” she asked the cat, as she squared her shoulders and headed toward the guild’s gatehouse, “are you here?”
“You made me stay.”
“No, why are you with me at all?”
The cat sniffed.
“We thought you would be less boring.”
This, strangely, was true. She was in dream, but not in dream, and she remembered that this cat, of the three, had almost succeeded in killing her. She could not muster fear of him, in the face of all the facts.
“We are yours,” Shadow told her. The guards at the gatehouse looked down their noses at her; they were, however, accustomed to some eccentricities in the wealthy and powerful. Jewel was not wearing the Terafin seal, and she wasn’t dressed as if she should be. She was dressed, she realized, as a traveler. She gave her name: Jewel Markess.
They sent her to the trade entrance.
• • •
The trade entrance was not unguarded. Thieves, or would-be thieves, had always been a problem for the guild and its rumored treasures.
The guards at the back gate demanded to know what her business was, just as the guards at the gatehouse had. The former, however, had asked very few questions before ascertaining that she was someone else’s problem. That someone else was far more thorough.
It was the cat, she decided. Even in dream, the cat was not invisible. Or silent.
A word traveled between the guards. “Did they honestly send you to us?” the older of the two demanded. She was visibly annoyed, and muttered something about lazy young men, none of which was meant for Jewel. “Do you have a collar or a leash for that?”
Shadow swelled in outrage. He sputtered.
“Not exactly,” Jewel said, placing her customary hand on the top of his head. “Shadow, please.”
The best she could hope for was what she got: lowering of wings and a lot of muttering about how intelligent she wasn’t.
The guard, however, shook her head; her eyes narrowed. “You said you were Jewel Markess?”
Jewel nodded.
“It’s your business, ma’am,” the guard continued, “but for our part, we’re very, very sorry you were sent to the trade entrance. I’ll have a word upstairs.”
Jewel, however, smiled. “I’m not—”
“With that great cat by your side, there’s only one person you could be. You’re here for Master Gilafas.”
She nodded because, in this dream, she understood that she was.
“You don’t have an appointment.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
The guard looked at the gray cat again and then straightened up, making a decision. “Andrew, door’s yours. I’m serving as armed page. Again.”
• • •
The halls through which the armed page led Jewel and Shadow ended at a very finely appointed reception room. If the maker-born were not determined to wield their wealth for political power, they understood its trappings. The chairs were of a darkly stained, heavy wood, upholstered in fabric that would have beggared a normal family; the rugs were likewise delicately woven and knotted, their colors bright and vibrant. She could see the pale sheen of orange light that spoke of enchantments laid across them, no doubt to protect them from wear and sunlight.
And sunlight streamed in through the forbiddingly large windows. They were framed by colored, worked glass, a mosaic of sorts, but their centers were clear, as if to acknowledge the value of normal daylight.
She was not s
urprised to find that Master Gilafas was not resident in this office.
But a page was sent, and a page returned. The guild’s version of Barston rose stiffly. “Master Gilafas will see you now.”
• • •
Jewel wondered, as she followed the page up the stairs, how it was that the most prominent of the many guilds, comprised almost invariably of older men and women, had stairs so punitive in height, pitch, and length. By the time she was finished with them, she felt the climb in her legs; her breath was short.
The page who had been sent to guide her didn’t seem to feel them the same way—but she was probably paid not to. She frowned apologetically when they finally reached flat floors again. “They’re not always this bad.”
“Do they change?”
“Oh, yes. Frequently. It’s why the guards don’t generally accompany guests to Fabril’s reach.”
“The stairs?”
“No—the fact that they change. If Master Gilafas is not expecting you, or if you have no legitimate business with him, you will fail to reach him. You might fail to reach anything that could be remotely considered an exit.”
“But . . . you said he was expecting me? Or at least willing to see me?”
The girl nodded, eyes bright.
“. . . And the stairs are worse than normal?”
“No, not worse—just different. But I know these ones,” she added, smiling.
Jewel almost stopped walking; the cat hissed and butted her back with the top of his head. “Have you ever been lost here?”
“Yes. Twice. But the older pages found me; they recognized the stairs, so they knew what to expect.”
“Have you ever lost pages here? I mean permanently?”
“Yes—but never while I’ve been here.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve been told it was very different under the previous guildmaster.”
“Oh?”
She nodded, and then, as if realizing that she had said far, far too much, flushed and lowered her head.
And Jewel remembered that she was The Terafin. But she was not dressed as The Terafin should be, and she wondered if the formal clothing and obvious wealth it implied was meant, in the end, as a kindness—an obvious wall that would inhibit all such slips of tongue, such casual conversation. She smiled at the girl and said, “My apologies. Curiosity is one of my besetting sins, and if I’m not thinking, I don’t remember to keep the questions on the right side of my teeth.” And she thought, as the tension across the girl’s straight shoulders receded, that she had never been as young as this page. Not at the same age.
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