Cast in Conflict

by Michelle Sagara

  * * *

  The first thing Kaylin noticed was that Killian was no longer missing an eye. The second was that he looked fully Barrani; he might have been a Barrani student were it not for the way he’d entered the chancellor’s office.

  The former Arkon didn’t seem to resent his presence the way he resented Kaylin’s, which was fair. In some fashion Killianas was the Academia.

  “Bellusdeo has, as you are aware, been meeting with the chancellor. He has offered what little advice he feels competent to offer.”

  “Have you talked with her?”

  “I have. I have spoken with her more frequently than the chancellor, who is extremely busy at the moment. We have much to do in order to rebuild what was almost lost. She has also visited the librarians and spoken at length with at least one of them.”

  “Why did she want to talk to you?”

  “I am not at all certain that she did. She is not natural student material, but she is absolutely willing to do the research necessary when she feels it is germane to her duties.”

  Kaylin frowned. “Was it Starrante she talked to?”

  “Yes. Before you ask, I was not privy to their discussion. The library is a space that is accessed through the Academia, but I have no control over, or command of, the librarians, and no ability to influence what occurs within their space.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “You are concerned for Bellusdeo?”

  “Always. My life depends on it.”

  “I see. Lannagaros?”

  “Speak with the corporal, by all means.”

  Killian nodded.

  Kaylin then turned to Killian and said, “Tell me everything you know about Karriamis.”

  “Everything? That might take longer than you have.”

  “The Arkon—I mean the chancellor—said that Karriamis was, before he became the heart of a Tower, a Dragon.”

  Killian nodded.

  “Candallar was the captain of the Tower Karriamis became.”

  Killian nodded again.

  “Karriamis was interested in finding the Academia, if it still existed.”

  “Yes. He was not the only Tower who had that interest. And his was not the only Tower that anchored the very little that remained of the Academia after the Towers rose. Even Towers that were not personally interested in the Academia provided an anchor; I am not certain all of the Towers were aware of this, but I do not see how they could not be.”

  “Nightshade’s Tower never talked to Nightshade about the Academia,” Kaylin pointed out. “I mean, if it had, Nightshade would have sought the Academia out himself.”

  “I believe this is materially true. You have enough experience to understand two things: that the Towers were built, just as the Academia was, from living people, and that those people were not the same; they had different underlying likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams, over which the responsibility of guarding against Ravellon had primacy.

  “You wish to know what Towers look for in a lord. I cannot answer. I know what I look for in a chancellor. You know what Helen looks for in a tenant. You understand some part of what Tara wanted from Tiamaris. These three things are not the same. No more were the lords the same.

  “Towers have some attachment to their captains. Karriamis did not wish Candallar to be destroyed—and the chancellor would not have destroyed him, in the end, had Candallar not decided that he could wrest control of the Academia from the chancellor by destroying the handful of students upon whom the heart of the Academia—me—depends.

  “Candallar overstepped; he is dead. His Tower is uncaptained.”

  “From personal experience, I can tell you that the Towers without captains can protect their territories for a few years.”

  Killian nodded. “The power of the Tower within its own confines is absolute. But within the confines of its territory, less so. There is a reason the Towers have captains, but I am not at all certain that the reasons are the same for each of the Towers.”

  “Did you know them?”

  “No. Their responsibilities were not my responsibilities. I could not become a Tower, even were I to somehow be extracted from the Academia; I would never have been chosen.”

  “You were aware of Karriamis.”

  Killian nodded again. “I am aware of Karriamis now. He is called Candallar by the people of his fief. I do not understand this.”

  “Most people don’t willingly walk into a Tower. They know who the fieflord is; they call the fief—and its Tower—by that name. When the fieflord dies, or when the fieflord abandons his or her Tower, the person who replaces the fieflord becomes the name associated with the fief.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the fieflords rule? I don’t honestly know. Maybe in other fiefs the custom isn’t the same. I didn’t know that Castle Nightshade was sentient. I believed that the fieflord in his own Tower was omnipotent.”

  “That is not the case.”

  “No, I’ve since learned more about it. But—”

  “You want to know what Karriamis wants.”

  She nodded.

  “You are not the only interested party who does.”

  “Bellusdeo asked you.”

  “She did.”

  “Who else?”

  Killian glanced at the chancellor, who nodded.

  “Terrano. I am somewhat fond of him, but grateful that he has not applied to become a student.”

  “No Tower would accept Terrano!”

  “In that, we agree. But it is not Terrano who would become the lord, as you must suspect.”

  Kaylin nodded. “Has Bellusdeo visited Candallar?”

  Silence.

  Kaylin understood this one, and turned once again to the chancellor. Before he could speak—if he intended to speak—she said, “I want Bellusdeo to be happy and safe. I think she’d be good at being a captain, and frankly, if Tiamaris could rule every single fief, I think the citizens of all the fiefs would be better off.”

  “He cannot, as you well know.”

  She nodded. “But...I think Bellusdeo would be more like Tiamaris than Nightshade.”

  “Karriamis accepted Candallar.”

  Kaylin nodded.

  “You are wondering why.”

  “I don’t think Candallar wanted to be captain of a Tower.”

  “No. In that I agree. A series of events led him to the Tower, and he had the will and the power to take it. But it was not his primary desire. Discovering the Academia after all this time was not his primary desire, either; it was—I was—a tool. A way to return to the power he did desire. Lord Nightshade is different in every aspect; they shared a race, and a status within that race, but they are not the same men. Lord Nightshade is fully capable of defending himself against those who would use his status as an excuse to murder him. He would be capable were he not a fieflord. Candallar did not have that confidence.”

  With reason. Candallar was not Nightshade’s equal.

  “No.” Killian’s smile was soft; his eyes were obsidian, but he corrected that color as she noticed. “I cannot tell you what you want to know—I do not have the answer. I am uncertain that Karriamis will accept any of your friends; it appeared to me that he was fond of Candallar, and your friends in aggregate were responsible for his death.”

  “That was the chancellor!”

  “In the end, yes—but the opportunity to do so was provided by your various associates.”

  “Is there a reason you feel that way?”

  “Bellusdeo is expected to make a report to the chancellor before the end of day. If you wish, you may retrace her conversational steps while you wait.”

  “We don’t need to wait—”

  We want to talk to Starrante, Severn surprised her by saying.

  “...could we get dinner with the rest of the s
tudents?”

  * * *

  The chancellor graciously gave permission to the two Hawks. It was, Killian explained, his permission to either give or withhold.

  “You may join the students in the dining hall if you exit my office immediately and fail to return.”

  “Ever, or today?”

  “I would like to say ever, but Killianas is fond of you and I do not feel he would enforce it.”

  Kaylin and Severn left the office as if he were the Hawklord and they were his Hawks.

  “I would be unlikely to enforce it,” Killian agreed—after the door had all but slammed shut on their backs. “He is unlikely to mean it.”

  “If he forbade anyone else the Academia?”

  “If he forbids anyone the Academia in a serious fashion, yes, I am capable of that, just as your Helen is; I am perhaps more capable of it than your Helen currently is. He finds you frustrating, but you are less frustrating at the moment than much of the work he must do, and he understands that your unique properties often provide an early warning that might otherwise be lacking.”

  “Unique properties?”

  “You are Chosen. But come. The library is not generally open to random visitors; I believe Starrante will be pleased to see you.”

  “Did Bellusdeo visit him?”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  Starrante was, as Killian had suggested, pleased to speak with Kaylin and Severn. What she hadn’t expected, upon entering a library that looked very much like the library she had first entered, was that Kavallac and Androsse would also be present. Kavallac was, or had been, a Dragon before she became a librarian; Androsse had been a Barrani Ancestor.

  If the three weren’t sentient buildings in the way Killian was, they were confined in a similar fashion. Within the confines of the library, they were more powerful than they had probably been when they had walked the city streets—or the forests that preceded them—but they were bound here. They couldn’t leave.

  If they could, Kavallac would have been a second living female Dragon. It would have taken the heat off Bellusdeo, although Kavallac seemed no more likely to want to become the mother of her race than Bellusdeo.

  Kavallac, however, couldn’t make the choice to do so, even if she desired the continuation of the race.

  “Corporal,” Starrante said, his forelegs weaving a complicated web directly between them. She understood that this was meant as an honor or an acknowledgment, but still found it unsettling. She wondered if Starrante found her as unsettling, but doubted it. He’d been the librarian for a long damn time, and he’d no doubt encountered the many student races who didn’t possess the legs, body, and web-spitting abilities his own race considered normal.

  “Arbiter.” She offered him a bow that Diarmat wouldn’t have held in contempt had he been present. She then bowed to both Kavallac and Androsse in turn, as did Severn.

  “Corporal Handred wished to speak with you.”

  Severn nodded.

  “What do you wish to speak about?”

  “The Towers,” he replied.

  The three arbiters glanced at each other. “The creation of the Towers almost doomed the Academia.” It was Kavallac who replied.

  Severn nodded. “Did you know Karriamis, or know of him?”

  Silence again, as if the air had been sucked out of the room.

  It was Kavallac who replied. “Yes.”

  05

  “You knew him before he agreed to become the heart of a Tower?”

  Kavallac nodded. “Why do you ask?” Her voice was cool, her eyes orange—but it was a silver-orange; all of the eyes of the Arbiters had a silver cast to their base color.

  “Candallar attempted to revive the Academia.”

  This time, when Starrante spit, he did not make a web of the results.

  Kavallac nodded, the nod controlled.

  “Killian implied heavily that he was aware of Karriamis—the Tower we call Candallar—and that Karriamis’s instructions were instrumental in the revival of the Academia.”

  “I do not concur,” Androsse said. As he was not a Dragon and had not yet made claims of familiarity, this was surprising. One brow rose as he glanced at Kaylin. “You are very expressive, Corporal. What Candallar desired was not the Academia; I am not certain that he understood it at all. He understood the trappings. He understood that there was knowledge here for the taking if it could be found.

  “He understood that knowledge is power. It is a phrase that has retained its use over the ages. But the desire for knowledge was predicated on the desire for power, and at that, a narrow definition of power.

  “What Karriamis wanted was not what Candallar wanted.”

  “So he used Candallar to get what he wanted?”

  “Do you somehow believe that the Towers must love their captains?”

  “It’s just—someone said he held Candallar in some affection.”

  “It is not outside the realm of possibility, but—and I mean no disrespect to the person who issued that opinion—this is not something that can be relied on as fact, as truth. Killian’s decision was not Karriamis’s decision, and if Killian is aware of Karriamis, he is just as aware of the rest of the Towers on the periphery of his responsibility.”

  Kaylin immediately raised a hand.

  If the librarians didn’t teach classes in the various classrooms or lecture halls, they had nonetheless dealt with groups of students before.

  “Can you repeat that last bit? I mean the part where Killian’s aware of the Towers on the periphery?”

  “As you appear to have heard it, I do not believe repeat is the word you meant.”

  “I don’t understand but—can Killian deliberately communicate with the Towers?”

  Another glance bounced between the Arbiters.

  It was Starrante who chose to answer. “We believe that communicate is the wrong word. He is aware of the Towers; they are—on some peripheral level—aware of Killian. Karriamis wished to find the Academia he was certain still existed in some form.

  “It is our belief that the sleeping Academia was anchored in a space similar to the outlands, which we are informed you have traversed.”

  “The outlands are—”

  “Similar to, not the same. The Tower imperatives did not allow such a preservation where Shadow might intrude; we stand in a space created by the power of the Towers themselves.”

  “You don’t think they’re aware of this?”

  “There has been much lively debate about that very question. For my part, no.”

  “And if no,” Kavallac snapped, “you imply an error on the part of the Ancients. How could power be drained from the Towers who were meant to be our last—our best—line of defense, if the Towers themselves were not aware of the source of that drain? That implies a dangerously lax and foolish architecture on the part of the Ancients who also created us.”

  Kaylin took all of this as a maybe.

  “Did Karriamis teach Candallar how to find this place?”

  “I doubt it. Had Karriamis been able to clearly delineate the steps to do so, Candallar would likely be chancellor. I believe that magical strides have been made in the past several decades—perhaps the past century. You will have seen the results of some of them personally. Two of those who we believe would have had a far greater chance at accomplishing what Candallar hoped to accomplish are now students within the Academia.”

  Serralyn and Valliant.

  She could guess where some of the “magical strides” had originated—but nothing remained static. Terrano had once traded his hard-won knowledge with some of the Barrani in an attempt to buy freedom for the cohort. Terrano’s knowledge was practical. His lessons had been changed, studied, improved, and used in ways Terrano hadn’t bothered to predict.

  She wondered if Serralyn’s knowledg
e would become more esoteric, and shook her head to clear it. What Serralyn would do was irrelevant in the immediate future, and the far future was unlikely to be Kaylin’s problem.

  “It is to Killian you wish to speak.”

  “And Karriamis,” Kaylin replied.

  “I would not advise that,” Kavallac said. “I understand the stakes. I understand what is at play here. But one cannot take a Tower that does not, in the end, consent. Towers will test. The tests are dependent on the Towers; they were not and are not meant to be predictable. Fail that test, and you will be lucky to survive. Most were not meant to.

  “Bellusdeo has asked questions very similar to yours.”

  Severn cleared his throat. “Did she ask Arbiter Starrante if his ability to weave portals could be used to access areas that are not within the Academia?”

  It was hard to determine whether or not Starrante smiled in response. Kaylin felt guilty. She understood that Starrante was fond of Robin, and that Starrante’s intervention had saved both the child and the library, but her visceral dislike of large, hairy insects made it difficult to relax. His spoken Barrani, while precise and perfect, was encased in something that sounded like insectoid clicking, which caused the hair on the back of her neck to rise.

  She was grateful to Diarmat, though—a thought that she’d’ve bet she’d never have. His etiquette lessons meant she could interact with Starrante as Starrante deserved, in spite of her visceral response. Her fears were her problem; they shouldn’t be made his.

  Manners are choices, Diarmat had said. Yours are appalling. In this class we will attempt to teach you to make better choices.

  She made better choices today, and hoped a day would come when giant talking spiders with multiple eyes seemed like just more people. It wasn’t going to be this one.

  “Yes, Corporal. Bellusdeo has asked.”

  “And your answer?”

  “I can create portals easily between one part of the Academia and another; I have not yet attempted to create a portal that leads outside of these grounds.”

  Severn didn’t ask why; he simply waited. Clearly, Starrante approved.