Cast in Honor

by Michelle Sagara

  “I believe I have seen that man before. Or one dressed very like him.”

  “In real life?”

  “No, Kaylin. In memory. In the memories that we are forced to invade, and of which we are allowed to speak only in the presence of Imperial court officials. I will speak with those officials when we are done.”

  “I think Teela has some idea of the man’s identity. Or at least of the tiara’s significance.”

  “You wish me to leave this to your Teela?”

  “I’d just as soon you spent as little time with Imperial officials as possible.”

  “Even the Hawks?”

  Kaylin grimaced. “Maybe especially the Hawks.” Because it was through the Hawks, for the most part, that the Tha’alani “interrogators” were summoned, and through the Hawks that the Tha’alani were exposed, consistently, to the worst mankind had to offer.

  “I understand why the Hawks were created. I understand their purpose. If it were not for the Hawks, we would never have met, and I would consider that a great loss on my part.” She straightened and pulled away from Kaylin, testing her legs for strength. They held her up, but she wasn’t going to be running anytime soon.

  Kattea had managed to drag Gilbert in more or less the right direction; he still looked unfocused and inattentive. Kattea, however, looked more frustrated than worried.

  Yes, Kaylin thought, the child had only known him for a handful of weeks. But she was right: she understood Gilbert better than Kaylin did. Maybe necessity had forced that understanding on her.

  “Should Gilbert go, too?” Kattea asked. Gilbert’s reaction to being touched by a Tha’alani had eased the younger girl’s fear in a way that Kaylin’s interaction with the younger children hadn’t. And of course, that made sense: children were not powerful, or not more powerful than Kattea—but Ybelline, adult, was.

  Gilbert finally noticed where he was. Or at least that he was somewhere that wasn’t strictly on the inside of his own head. “I am not certain that will be necessary,” he told Kattea. “Or that I would be welcome; I may cause...confusion.”

  Ybelline actually laughed. She was careful not to touch Gilbert, but she did not look at him with worry or dread. “You will certainly cause that.”

  “What is your preference?”

  “I am torn—my people share thoughts and experiences, but we are not all of one mind, and we bring different knowledge to those shared experiences.”

  “I can attempt to contain my thoughts.”

  “I rather think that would be beside the point” was the castelord’s gentle reply. “They are waiting.”

  * * *

  To Kaylin’s surprise, Draalzyn was present. Draalzyn was seconded to the Hawks, but worked for the most part in Missing Persons. He was older than Ybelline, his hair streaked with gray, and at the moment, he was just as pale as Ybelline, although this wasn’t always the case.

  His eyes did narrow when he caught sight of Kaylin.

  Kaylin nodded.

  “Private Neya,” another man said. Scoros. Of all the Tha’alanari, Scoros was the least intimidating, if one excluded Ybelline.

  “You’ve grown a beard.”

  “I am making the attempt, yes. It is supposed to make me look more mature, and therefore more worthy of respect. You don’t like it?”

  “It’s...different.”

  He chuckled. “My family is not enamored of it, either; Eladara says it is uncomfortable, and my son detests it enough that he tried to shave it while I was sleeping.” At Kaylin’s expression, his chuckle became a laugh—and his laugh, like Ybelline’s, was one Kaylin loved. But it faded as Gilbert entered the room, Kattea clinging to his arm.

  “Corporal Handred is not of the Tha’alaan,” Draalzyn said.

  “No. Nor are our other guests.” Ybelline emphasized the last word very slightly. “But in this, they are all intent upon preserving the city. You have seen some part of what we have only barely managed to contain; you cannot imagine that the deaths coming to Elantra will occur in our quarter alone.”

  Draalzyn nodded slowly. He never looked precisely happy, and his beard framed his face in such a way that his pallor was the second thing you noticed, if you noticed anything at all. “Your point is taken. Have you spoken to Private Neya outside of the Tha’alaan?”

  “Not in any great detail. Will you speak with her directly?”

  Draalzyn looked as if he’d rather kiss a hundred toads. Which was fair, because Kaylin would rather kiss two hundred. They both shut up.

  “Scoros?”

  “It is as you know. We will retreat to this building and open the interior gates. Those who flee through the tunnels will not survive; they perish first. Those who remain to defend and guard their retreat perish shortly thereafter.”

  “What attacks the quarter?”

  “It is still not completely clear to us,” Draalzyn replied. The stalks on his forehead were weaving in a graceful way that was at odds with everything else about the man. “The deaths are not instant—but they are quick. Some are crushed. Some are, we think, beheaded; some are torn apart in a matter of seconds. Some feel the pain of fire—but only briefly. They are panicked. They are in their homes or in the streets; there is very little warning.”

  “They don’t see anything?”

  “No, Kaylin.”

  “So—whatever kills them, whatever slaughters them, is invisible?”

  Ybelline answered before Draalzyn could. “There are tactile impressions, but these are also confused. Yes. I would guess that the deaths will be the same across the city. In this possible future, I reach the mirror,” she added softly. She hesitated. “We manage to secure a safe area, a barriered hold. But activation of the mirror—” She inhaled sharply. “It summons death into our chambers.”

  Kaylin’s hands were fists.

  “Don’t,” Ybelline said, reaching for those fists and forcing Kaylin’s fingers to unbend. “It is a mercy. For all of us, it is a mercy; the pain and the fear of our people’s deaths have driven us all to the edge of madness.”

  “Or over it,” Scoros said quietly. “We have attempted to piece more together. I believe it is Draalzyn who suggests the barrier.”

  Draalzyn nodded, his lips twisted. “I have gained some knowledge among your Hawks. It is not, in future, enough. I do not cast the spell in question.” He didn’t say who did. Kaylin didn’t ask.

  “Can you tell me what kind of barrier? What is it meant to protect you against?”

  “It is an inversion,” Ybelline replied, “of a summoning spell.”

  “A summoning spell?” Kaylin felt like a parrot.

  “We have, prior to this, summoned water. And fire. It is a specific spell that requires the names of those elements. The barrier is comprised of that knowledge and the attempt to drive them out.”

  “But—but why?”

  “Draalzyn?”

  Draalzyn looked as if he’d swallowed a rat that wasn’t quite dead. “Ybelline, must I?”

  “If you prefer, I can visit the memories of your death and the hours before it occurred.” Her eyes, as she spoke, were gold.

  Draalzyn grimaced. “You think I would spare you that pain when I have had to endure it myself?”

  “Yes, actually, I do.” She smiled.

  He threw both his hands up in disgust that was only partly feigned. “This,” he told Kaylin, “is what you must watch out for when Ybelline knows you too well. She will twist you around her finger; you will do what she wants you to do because you can’t bear to cause her pain. Even,” he added darkly, “when you wish to strangle her.

  “The concept of a magical barrier exists among the mages. It was of interest to me, and of interest to my kin. It was not a priority, because it does not prevent actual people from crossing its lines. The b
arriers exist in a particular form; they exist as a counter to other magicians. There are many theories about magic—its use, its origin—and therefore many theories about the counters that can be put into play.

  “The barrier was one such theory. I suggested it to Ybelline at an earlier stage in her education. She considered it with the same care she considers many foreign things.” The implication was not lost on Kaylin.

  “The barrier works, in the future?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait.” Kaylin held up a hand, although Draalzyn didn’t seem to be in a hurry to interrupt her. “You—you don’t think it’s the elements that destroy the city?”

  “We do not know,” he said, drumming the table at which he sat. “We do not speak with the elements. We speak into the Tha’alaan. The Tha’alaan is part of the elemental water—but it is a small part, at odds with the whole. It is inconceivable to us that the water itself would destroy the city—but I am told I, at least, suffer from insufficient imagination.” This last, he said in a very sour voice, with an expression to match.

  “It is, in theory, possible that magic as our mages currently understand it has its underpinnings in the elemental forces. Frankly, this makes sense to me, if we accept that the world itself is derived from those forces.”

  “There’s no way the elements go to town if...”

  “If the Keeper is still in control of his Garden,” Ybelline finished for her.

  “If he wasn’t, the fiefs wouldn’t be standing in the aftermath. The fiefs are part of our world, right? Whatever happens here—or to the rest of the city—doesn’t destroy the fiefs. They’re still standing.”

  Kattea cleared her throat.

  This caught Kaylin’s attention immediately.

  “I was alive when the city across the bridge disappeared. I don’t remember any of it—I was too young.”

  This caused a predictable fuss, but in keeping with the Tha’alani, it was a muted fuss, and it was resolved in relative silence. Kaylin wished she could be on the other side of that silence, but held her peace. All eyes in the room turned to Gilbert, and from there, found Kattea.

  Forehead stalks bobbed, eyes shifted color, people rose.

  Ybelline, who had not yet taken a seat, seemed to stand at the center of a silent storm. Kaylin wanted to be her umbrella, but knew she didn’t actually need one. “Gilbert,” Ybelline finally said.

  Gilbert nodded, his eyes slightly narrow, as if he’d followed the entire silent discussion. He probably had, but didn’t yet know what to make of it.

  “If it is acceptable to you, Scoros wishes to communicate more directly.”

  Scoros rose as Gilbert nodded. He apparently had some questions of his own to ask. Gilbert was silent, however, and became as still as he had when Ybelline had made contact with him the first time.

  Because Scoros was prepared, he didn’t collapse the way Ybelline had, but he stiffened until he appeared to be almost as rigid as Gilbert, and when he withdrew, he was visibly shaken. He didn’t turn to Ybelline; instead he turned to Kattea, who had surrendered Gilbert’s arm. She made no attempt to take it back—she couldn’t. She’d taken an involuntary step—or three—away from Scoros.

  Scoros immediately raised both of his hands, palms out, and stopped moving. “I do not intend you harm,” he said quietly, “and I will not touch you at all without your explicit permission or a direct command from the Emperor.”

  “They don’t particularly want to read our thoughts or know our secrets,” Kaylin told the younger girl. “They find our fear suffocating and our lives difficult. If it weren’t for the Emperor’s commands, they wouldn’t interact with us at all—not the way they interact with each other, anyway.”

  Kattea said nothing.

  Scoros stepped back, found himself a chair and sat heavily. He looked at Kattea. “Please. Tell us what you remember. Or tell us what you were told.”

  * * *

  Kattea left Gilbert standing to one side of the room; he was, once again, unaware of his surroundings, his two eyes blinking rapidly, his third staring at nothing anyone in the room could see. The familiar on Kaylin’s shoulder lifted his head, looked at Gilbert and snorted. He then lowered it again and closed one eye. Kaylin thought he would sleep, but he lifted his head once more, grumbling, and stretched his wings, smacked Kaylin—possibly accidentally—on the cheek with one and pushed himself off her shoulder.

  He flew to Kattea and hovered in front of her pale face. He didn’t land; he did squawk—quietly, for him—while he hovered.

  “Put out your arm,” Kaylin told the younger girl, gentling her voice as she realized Kattea was rigid with fear. Kattea blinked. Her eyes widened as she looked at the familiar, and some of that fear—though not the bulk of it—lessened. She put her arm out, and the familiar—complaining quietly the entire time—landed on her forearm, then inched his way up to her small shoulder.

  She giggled. It was part nerves and partly the effect of his small claws; he didn’t dig in, but they tickled.

  “We will not touch you without your permission,” Scoros said again. “Fear,” he continued, in a very conversational voice, “is difficult for any of us to deal with. You think adults don’t feel fear—but you are wrong. We all feel fear. It is part of being human. Secrets are harder for my people. Children don’t have any; they have not yet learned how to keep things from their kin. But because they can see the experiences of the rest of us, they understand that their fear, or their sense of shame, is not unique—it is natural. For your kin, the shame and the fear grow far deeper roots; they become larger and stronger.

  “It is not so with the Tha’alani. There is nothing that you have felt that we have not felt. There is nothing new in it, for us; it is new to you because you have nothing to compare it with. But we understand that your secrets are necessary to you and the way you think and live.

  “In your world, which is our world in the near future, almost everyone who lives in the city has died. In our world, which is our present, that future has not happened—yet. It is to prevent that destruction that we ask you now to consider allowing us to see parts of your life. We don’t know what destroys the city. Any clue—any information that your parents might have given you, anything that your neighbors might have said to your parents when you were too young to understand the words—might help us.”

  The small dragon nuzzled her cheek—and then bit her hair.

  “No,” Kattea said.

  The small dragon squawked.

  Gilbert failed to notice any of this. Kaylin wondered what he had heard in the Tha’alaan; he didn’t hear what she’d heard, to be so frozen in place by it. She wondered, briefly, if all thought had...dimensionality; if there were parts of thought itself that she couldn’t grasp, even if they were her own thoughts. She didn’t particularly like where this was leading.

  Kattea shook her head again. No.

  And Kaylin wanted to shake the girl until her teeth rattled. Which was wrong. She knew it was wrong, but they had so little information that any might prevent the looming disaster.

  “Yes,” Ybelline said quietly, as Kaylin startled. The Tha’alani castelord was standing so close to Kaylin they should have been touching. They weren’t. “But that is the shadow fear casts, always. Kattea’s fear. Our own fear. But we cannot be you. We cannot be Kattea. What we can justify in the heat of the moment, we must live with forever; it becomes part of not only who we are, but who our people are. Every action we take shapes and defines us.

  “And there is enough darkness at our roots. We have struggled for generations to lift ourselves out of our past. We will not go there again.”

  The small dragon squawked; it was a softer sound and reminded Kaylin of crooning. With edges.

  Kattea started to cry. The tears trailed down her cheeks, but didn’t give way to sobbing; her br
eath wobbled, but she held herself upright. Sleeves dashed tears away almost angrily. “My dad was a Sword,” she said, spitting the words out as if only force would eject them. “A Sword.”

  She had said that before.

  “Most of the Swords died. Some of the Swords were ordered over the bridge—two bridges—and they made people follow. My dad was one of them. It was his job, he said. He was supposed to keep the city safe. He was supposed to be there to stop fear from turning people into—” She stopped.

  “Animals,” Kaylin supplied. “The Swords patrol. The Hawks investigate. When something big goes down—raging fire in the city, for instance—the Swords are sent out. They’re trained to lead. They know how to make people listen. They can stop panic from becoming as much of a danger to people as the fire would be.” She swallowed. Turned to Ybelline and almost knocked her over.

  “There wasn’t enough room, in the fief. It was crowded. Dad said—” She swallowed. “Dad said—” But she choked.

  “Was the Emperor in the fiefs?” Scoros asked. “The Emperor is really the commander in chief of both the Swords and the Hawks.”

  “No. He—he died.”

  Silence.

  “All the Dragons died. Mom said you could hear them roaring for a day after the clouds moved in.” She swallowed. The still tears now threatened to become ugly tears. Ugly tears, on the other hand, were practically the only tears Kaylin could cry. “I want—I want to make a deal. With you.” She didn’t say this to Scoros.

  She said it to Ybelline. Ybelline nodded, but didn’t move from Kaylin’s side.

  “If this is really the past, if this is really our past—”

  Kaylin knew what Kattea wanted then. Knew it before the words left the girl’s mouth.

  “If this is our past, if this is my past, if this is what the city was before—before the gray—it means my mom and my dad are still alive.”

  “Kattea, no. I have told you.” Gilbert spoke. Gilbert not only spoke but moved, becoming part of the human landscape again. His third eye shuttered as he approached Kattea. She actually stepped away, and he stopped. “My apologies,” he said, to the room at large.