“The first Dragon you heard yesterday—what did it say?”
“It didn’t say much. The closest I could come in Elantran is freedom, but it lacks the gratitude and joy that I heard. I could, if you’d like, repeat it.”
“No!” Kaylin said as forcefully as she could.
Evanton took a sip of tea; obviously Tiamaris was considered a real guest. Tiamaris picked up one of the delicate cups and held it by its rim and its base. Of course, Tiamaris could probably stick his hand in a fire and not notice that it was hot. Kaylin stared mournfully at her own neglected cup.
“He wasn’t actually alive,” she said. “The Dragon, I mean.”
“Ah. By which you mean he was actually dead?”
“Long dead.”
“And you found him.”
“In the library.”
Evanton’s brows rose. “They let you into the Imperial Libraries? And you walked out alive?”
“I didn’t take anything—” Which wasn’t technically true.
“My dear, I wouldn’t have vouched for your safety there in any case. The librarian is one of the few living creatures who could probably read what’s written on you.”
“Well, yes, but—” She stopped. “W-what do you mean?”
He actually grimaced. “Kaylin, you come from the fiefs. I expect you to be good at lying.”
She would have bridled, but it was Evanton.
“I know what you are, girl. I always knew it.”
“Could you explain it to me?”
“Not easily, no, and you probably wouldn’t understand half of it. I’m too old to have the patience to try. But I know that you bear the marks. This is my home,” he added. “And very little comes into my home that I cannot see clearly.”
“You always knew?”
“I always knew.”
“And you let me into—”
He lifted a hand.
“Sorry.”
“Good girl. I trust your intent, Kaylin. And I have ways of protecting myself against hazardous accidents. This is probably one of very few places in which you could be safe.”
“From what?”
“Yourself. But I interrupted you. Please continue.” Steam rose between them like a tattered curtain. “A dead Dragon?”
“Oh. Yes. Very dead. For some reason, they kept the skeleton—”
“In the library.”
She nodded.
“He was very loud for a dead creature.”
“You’re telling me. I—”
“Kaylin.” Tiamaris frowned.
“Oh. Right. He—” She hesitated again. “He was trapped in the library. But not by the—the librarian. He’d—damn it, it was all so clear yesterday.”
“Magic often works that way,” Evanton replied. “I won’t ask for details or explanations that you’re not capable of giving me. Have a biscuit,” he added. “Before the mice get them. And tell me what you think happened. I’m sure Lord Tiamaris will correct any infelicities.”
“Well—he was trapped by something he was guarding. But it was more than just guarding. It was his—his—hoard, I think. But it wasn’t so much gold or treasure—”
“She has a human understanding of Dragons,” Tiamaris said, with just a hint of frustration.
“Well, she is human. Mostly. What was it, Kaylin?”
“It was a pendant. No—it was more than a pendant. It was a word.”
The cup of tea froze halfway to the old man’s mouth. “A…word.”
She nodded. “He was entrusted with its keeping. No, not even with its keeping—he was to guard it and to use it when the need arose, because it could be used by someone strong enough. He was powerful, in life, and I think he was young for a Dragon when he accepted the responsibility.
“But the responsibility didn’t end with his death.”
Evanton closed his eyes and set the cup down heavily. “He is gone now.”
She nodded. “He thought I was—I was someone else.”
“And you lied to him.”
“No!” She swallowed. She had sort of lied to him—but it hadn’t felt like a lie. Not when she’d been speaking. Not when she’d been there. “He saw—I guess he saw whatever it is that you saw when you first saw me. I—He—” She shook her head. “He thought I was someone else.” Lame, lame, lame. “He said he had called for me, and I failed to arrive in time. And I wanted to be someone else, for him. So I…apologized. For being so late. I’m good at that,” she added with a trace of bitter humor.
“If he saw what you think I saw, he saw truly,” Evanton said almost gently.
“He wanted me to take it. And I did—but I told him I would find someone else who could do what he did. Who could guard it with his life—or more than that. Who could use it when it needed to be used. And only when it needed to be used.” The last part, she realized, was important. She stopped talking for a moment and absently picked up her cup. The spill as she set it down—quickly—was almost invisible. “He had power,” she said softly, “but he wasn’t chosen for his power. He was chosen because he had no desire to use it.”
Tiamaris shook his head. “He had the desire, Kaylin.”
“How would you know?”
“He was a Dragon. And by your own words, a young Dragon. What he had, as well, was the ability not to use the power.”
“And he used it late.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps he could not trust himself with its use until it was too late.”
And, ashen now, Evanton said, “I know what you saw. He gave it to you?”
She nodded. “I think I’m supposed to give it to you.”
“Would that it were so,” Evanton replied. “But I am not its keeper.”
“Can you see it?”
“No more than you can, now.”
“But I think it belongs in your…garden.”
“Garden?”
“Garden.”
“It has been missing for a very long time. But if it belongs in my garden, as we shall call it, so, too, does its bearer. And that person is not me, Kaylin. I’m sorry.”
“Then who?”
“That, I cannot tell you. But I think you have very little time in which to find the answer.”
“But it—” She stopped. “He said he could hear…it. His enemy. The thing, I think, that killed him in the end.”
Evanton nodded. “And if you bear his burden, girl, and you listen very, very carefully, you will hear it, as well. I do not, however, suggest that you try.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are currently sane.”
“And listening would—” She stopped. “The Oracles.”
“Yes. They do not know what they hear, but they hear truly. They are not, by anyone’s definition, sane. And they cannot prevent themselves from hearing the voice. Think about being an Oracle.”
“No, thanks.”
“Then do not listen.”
She nodded. “Do you know what killed the couple?”
“Water.”
She started in on sarcasm and stopped before she opened her mouth. “Tiamaris—remind me to ask what kind of water they drowned in.”
The Dragon nodded.
“Very good,” Evanton said.
“Could a mage have done it?”
“Done what?”
“Well—drowned them. Put water in their lungs.”
“Only the old-fashioned way.”
“Tiamaris—”
“The Keeper is correct, Kaylin. Of the mages that currently practice in the Imperial Service, there is not one who has the power or control to do what was done there. With fire, yes, but fire is the easiest element to master. Earth, in its time, is simple, as well, although devastating. But air and water? No.”
“The Arcanists?”
“That is less clear to me. If, however, you are obliquely referring to Donalan Idis, then the answer would once have been no.”
“Would once have been?”
“He was gifted, and pow
erful. He is no longer a part of the Arcanum, and we therefore have no idea what he has been doing. Or learning.”
“What is the difference between an Arcanist and a mage, anyway?”
“A mage serves the Emperor.”
“Oh.” Pause. “That’s it?”
“The Arcanum existed before the Empire. Had the Emperor wished to raze it to the ground, he could have done so—but there was a small risk that the Empire would have joined it in the ashes. The Emperor chose to be pragmatic.”
“Too bad.”
“Indeed, the Arcanum is not well loved by the Officers of the Law. But it is—again in theory—subject to the Law, and the truce that has existed since the founding prevents the Arcanists from breaking said Law.”
“They are their own Law,” Evanton added with a small frown.
“What does that mean?”
“It means they wish to remain free from the constraints that the Imperial Mages labor under, and they kill any of their own who might be justifiable cause for the loss of that independence. There might possibly be one or two who could do what was done—but at a significant expenditure of power.”
“You don’t think it was them.”
“You’ve already pointed out why it would be foolish.”
“Then how—” She stopped. “The reliquary.”
“Yes.”
“You think they’ve opened it.”
“No. Not yet. But I think they—whoever they are—are close to being able to open it.”
“What’s inside it, Evanton?” she asked.
“I told you, truthfully, that I have never seen the inside.”
She nodded.
“If I had, I, and this entire City, would most likely be dead.”
CHAPTER 13
Tea took a long time to cool. Kaylin stared at Evanton. “The entire City.”
“Yes.”
“And you leave it lying around?”
Something suspiciously like a Dragon’s foot stepped on hers. “Forgive her impertinence, Keeper.”
“Always.”
“Well—does it have a mark or a note that says open this and kill everyone???”
“No. And if it did, some enterprising idiot of a mage would spend his entire adult life trying to open it anyway. Trust me,” Evanton added darkly.
She looked at Tiamaris, who seemed to be completely unsurprised by anything that had been said so far. “Why the hell would anyone want to open it?”
“Because it’s powerful, and people who are certain of their own power cannot conceive of a power they cannot control.” Evanton replied.
“Very, very few people are aware of what it contains,” Tiamaris said, as if Evanton had not spoken.
“No one could steal something like that by accident.”
“I would have said no one could steal it at all,” the Dragon lord replied gravely. “And anyone who could—” He paused. “Keeper?”
Evanton bowed his head. “The fault, as you are careful not to suggest, is mine.”
Tiamaris began to speak, but Evanton swatted the words away. “I will not invite you into my garden,” he told the Dragon lord.
“Nor would I expect it, Keeper. But you took Kaylin, and her companion, to see what the Dragons and the Barrani have never seen. I admit that we were curious. You understand something of the nature of Kaylin’s…unique talents. I would have guessed that she, like the Dragons, would be excluded, and for similar reasons.”
Evanton shrugged. “I have only instinct to go by. When I see a Dragon—on the rare occasions one has chosen to visit—it is seldom comforting. The Barrani, one trusts only when one is dead.”
“And Kaylin?”
“Is Kaylin. She is as you see her. She says too much, too easily, she has a temper, and she has an overwhelming weakness for the very young and the very old. She jumps to conclusions, and frequently it is not unlike jumping off a cliff when one thinks it is a hillside. She is also a Hawk, and whether or not she grew up as a thief in the fiefs, she believes in the laws she swore to uphold. The desire for power is part of her nature only in daydreams, and she is fast becoming aware that those idle dreams are far removed from reality. I do not fear her.”
“And you invited her into your…garden because you do not fear her?”
Evanton’s face was about as friendly as stone—a great slab of it, falling forward to crush someone. But if it lacked any friendliness, he didn’t order Tiamaris to leave. “I invited her, as you put it, because I am now too old to do what must be done—if I could ever have done it.”
“Wait—what are you talking about? What must be done?”
He stared at the surface of his tea, as if he could read something in his own reflection. “You must find the reliquary,” he said at last.
But Kaylin was still troubling over the words he and Tiamaris had exchanged. “You let me in. But you didn’t let them in.” “No.”
“Which means they had to let themselves in.”
“Obviously.”
“How?”
He was silent again, and it went on for a while. At last he said, “I am old, Kaylin. I was not old when I took possession of this store. I was also not the first person to come to the man who owned it. I was merely the last. He could find no better at the time.”
“What happened to the others?”
Evanton said nothing. Loudly.
“So…whoever did come here…could come here.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s significant.”
“Of course.”
She was thinking ahead of herself, and trying not to stumble over the thoughts. “Whoever it was, they didn’t come alone. And…whoever came with them didn’t mean for them to stay.”
He nodded.
“Would they know, Evanton?”
“Before they came? No, Kaylin. I highly doubt that. They must have suspected, but the knowledge could only be gained for certain when they were in the…garden. But once they were here? Yes. I think they would know.”
She looked up at him, her eyes narrowing. “The girl.”
“The girl?”
“In the water. The girl who spoke my name.”
Evanton nodded quietly. “She could touch anything here, I think, with safety.”
“And she took the reliquary.”
“That is my belief.”
“But—”
“Find her, and you will find it.”
“And what else will I find?”
“I don’t know, Kaylin. I would go myself, but at this time, I cannot leave.”
“Evanton, do you think she killed that couple?”
His face was pale. “She has no guide, no tutor,” he said at last. “And she may not have the power required. I do not know. But it is possible, Kaylin.”
“If she killed them—”
“Yes.”
Kaylin said, rising, “We should go.”
Evanton nodded, not pointing out that she hadn’t touched her tea. Well, hadn’t drunk any of it.
“But I don’t understand. How, in this entire city, could someone find the one person who could come here at all? How would he know what to take? How would he even—”
“These are all good questions,” Evanton replied. “Their answers are beyond me. Let me say this—there is likely to be more than one person in the Empire to whom these doors would not be locked. He would only have to find one.”
“But he’d have to know what he was looking for!”
“Indeed.”
“And only the Barrani and the Dragons seem to even have a clue what you’ve got hidden here. Hells, I’ve seen it, and I still don’t.”
“That,” Tiamaris said drily, “would be the other reason it would be safe to allow you entry here.”
She didn’t kick him, but it took effort. He rose, and Evanton rose, as well, bent by age and worry. He led them to the door of his shuttered store and unlocked it—although she hadn’t remembered him locking the door when they’d come in.
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“When you find the girl,” Evanton said quietly, “and if she still lives—and, Kaylin, I think there is a very high chance that she does not—you will find the guardian you seek for what you carry.”
“And if she’s dead?”
“You will carry it for some time yet.” He paused, and then added, “I am old, Kaylin. It was an act a hundred years ago. It is not an act now. I hear the voices that the Oracles hear. I fear for the loss of the city.
“And I fear, as well, that my time is passing. That what has stood here for millennia will not stand at the end of two weeks. There is a power here that you cannot conceive of, and I ask only that you think of that power in the wrong hands.”
If, she thought bitterly, I can’t conceive of it, how the hells can I imagine it in the wrong hands? But Evanton was as smart, in this case, as he thought he was—because she could, and she didn’t much like what she came up with.
“How many more drownings,” she whispered, half to herself.
Tiamaris stepped firmly and heavily on her foot, and then all but dragged her out of the shop.
“It is a small wonder to me,” he told her, as he walked briskly away from the small Elani Street shop, “that you’ve been allowed to enter that place more than once.”
“Why?”
“You do not understand the burden of the Keeper.”
She rolled her eyes. “No. I don’t. I understand the burden of the Hawks, and that’s enough for me. Besides, it’s not like he’s explained—”
“He shouldn’t need to explain. I cannot believe—” He slowed down, shortening his stride. His steps were still thunderously heavy, though. “He is respected, Kaylin, by the Dragon Court. He is not entirely trusted—he stands outside of our Laws, and our ability to enforce those Laws. When the earth devoured the cities that stood before this one was begun, his garden remained. Do you understand?”
“No. But I understand that the Barrani and the Dragons understand it.” She paused for a long moment. “Do you want to explain?”
“No. But I will say this, since you’ve seen it—the Dragon you rescued from death, the Dragon you freed—it was his fate to guard less than the Keeper now guards.”
“He failed.”
“Yes.” Tiamaris now mimed a leisurely pace, which Kaylin could easily match.
“And Evanton is failing.”
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