When he again failed to speak, she turned to Mandoran. “Please tell me you can see the door. Look—I could see the door when I entered the room. Before I tried to heal Gilbert. I don’t know what you’re looking at—but could you try to look at it the way the merely mortal do? Just for a minute?”
Mandoran frowned. “I believe I am looking at the door the way the merely mortal do. Now you’ve done it,” he added, with a little too much glee.
“Done what?”
“Teela’s heading down. She tells me to tell you she’ll break your left arm if you open that door before she gets here.”
“She’s not my partner.”
“Your partner is coming, too.”
* * *
Kattea and Bellusdeo did not appear at the door. Tain, Severn and Teela did. “Yes,” she said, before Kaylin could open her mouth. “I see the door.” Severn nodded. He also unwound his weapon chain.
“What, exactly, are you doing?” Teela demanded.
“Trying to find the right place to put a missing word, if you must know.”
“Kattea said you were—”
“Healing Gilbert, yes. But that doesn’t mean what it normally does. He’s alive, but not in the way any of us are. I think—I think I need to put a word somewhere. To finish a figurative sentence.” She tossed Teela the closed book in her hands.
“Do not open that!” Gilbert shouted. It was the first time he had raised his voice.
“Teela, can you see Gilbert?”
“Yes. You can’t?”
“No. I can hear him. I can’t see him.”
To Gilbert, Teela said, “Kaylin opened this.”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t want me to.”
“I do not think it would be wise. Kaylin is Chosen; she is interacting with the book in a way that you will not.”
“What did you do, kitling?” More edge to this question.
“I picked it up and opened it. It’s blank,” she added. “I think they’re all blank.”
“They are not blank,” Gilbert told her. “Or at least they will not be to your friend.”
“Are they yours?”
“They are in my keeping.” Which wasn’t the same thing.
Teela handed the book back to Kaylin; she tucked it under her arm. “The door?”
Kaylin nodded.
* * *
They paused in front of it. Severn was a yard behind them. When Teela lifted a hand, Kaylin caught it before the Barrani Hawk’s palm made contact with the ward.
“Not you.”
“I’m not in the mood to listen to you whine about door wards.” Teela was never in that mood.
“This is a door that Gilbert, Annarion and Mandoran can’t see. If small and squawky were a reasonable size, I’d look at it through his wings; as it is, if he sits on my shoulder it’ll only be because I’m flat out on the floor. I don’t imagine this is a normal door ward. If it is, I will do my level best not to—as you put it—whine.” When Teela failed to move, Kaylin continued, “Gilbert didn’t think it was safe for you to open this book. If he thought it was safe for you to open the door, I’d let you do it and be grateful.
“But since he can’t see it, his opinion doesn’t count.”
Teela glanced at Tain. Tain shrugged.
Kaylin placed her palm against the ward.
* * *
She was braced for the sharp jolt of pain that door wards always caused, and mindful of Teela glowering at her side. She was not prepared for the pain to stop.
But it did. The marks on her arms, although they still shed light, were once again flat, a colored part of her skin. As a bonus, the door swung open.
Teela’s skepticism was practically physical.
The room beyond was dark. The only thing that shed light was the floor, because this floor very much matched the floor in the other room—the one she’d seen only when she made direct contact with Gilbert. It was a steady stream of chaos, colors bubbling up to its surface as if it were lava. The air, however, was cold enough to cause breath to mist.
“What are you hoping to find here?”
“Words” was Kaylin’s flat response. “Don’t close that door.” She rolled back both of her sleeves and lifted her arms. “Can you guys tell me what you see?”
Teela hesitated. “What do you see, kitling?”
“Not much. It’s cold and it’s dark. I can just make out the ceiling, which is flat. Teela?”
“It looks like a morgue.”
* * *
“A morgue.” Kaylin exhaled. She moved toward the center of the room, but she didn’t run into any tables. Or chairs. Or, more relevant to Teela’s description, bodies. “No wonder Mandoran and Annarion are having such a hard time.”
“Pardon?”
“There are no slabs here. There are no chairs. There are no cupboards and no corpses. Why morgue?”
“There’s a sheeted corpse,” Tain said quietly.
“Is it human?”
“I said it was sheeted. It is roughly human in size.” He then spoke to Teela so quietly Kaylin couldn’t pick up his words. Teela’s were clearer. She was cursing in Aerian.
“It’s not human.”
“Leontine? Tha’alani? Anything mortal?”
“No.”
Kaylin, frustrated, turned toward Teela, to find that she had vanished. Only her voice remained; hers and Tain’s. It was disorienting and very, very uncomfortable, but it was also a reminder: Kaylin was still, somehow, attached to Gilbert. What she saw now was, in some part, a function of that. “You can’t identify the race.”
“It is not draconian; it is not Barrani.” Teela hesitated.
“Is it an ancestor? I mean, like the ones that woke up in Castle Nightshade?”
“No,” Tain said. “We’re wrong. I don’t think it is a corpse.”
Tain had seen his share of corpses. They all had. It was not an easy mistake for the Barrani corporal to make. Kaylin was frustrated; she wanted to see. She approached Tain—or rather his voice—because that was all she had to go on.
Severn said, “It feels like ice.”
“It’s not ice,” Teela replied. “Marble, maybe; it’s too polished for stone.”
“It looks like a corpse, not a statue,” Tain added.
As she approached their familiar voices, the air grew colder. The mist produced by warm breath in cold air grew more dense. She could not see any of the other Hawks in the room. Nor could she see the body or statue or whatever it actually was. She saw her arms, her breath and layers of darkness that were parted by the light the marks on her arms shed.
She needed to see what they were seeing, and there was only one way to do that.
Severn.
He was there instantly.
I’m sorry.
Don’t be. You mostly stay on your own side of the fence. She felt the undercurrent of humor.
You can see what they see?
Yes.
I need to see it, too. This might be uncomfortable—
Kaylin.
Right. She stopped wasting time on apologies or explanations. She had a True Name. She wasn’t born to it, hadn’t been given life by it, but it was there. None of the Barrani really understood what a True Name meant for a mortal, and as a result, the mortal in possession of that name didn’t understand it, either. But she had given her name to Severn.
She could speak to Severn, and Severn could speak to her. They didn’t have to be in the same room, although in this case being in the same room was no guarantee of anything. More than that, they could see what the other person saw, or hear what the other person heard—with effort.
Kaylin made that effort now.
Through S
evern’s eyes, she could see Teela and Tain. Teela was examining the not-corpse, her brows folded in toward the bridge of her nose. To Kaylin’s eye, they weren’t actually in the same room that she was. Their voices were, but otherwise, there was no overlap.
But she saw what Severn saw. What Tain had initially assumed was a body lay, half-covered, on a stone slab that stood two feet above the ground. Given the shape of its upper body, Kaylin assumed it was meant to be male. To Kaylin’s eye, it resembled the Barrani, up to a point: the length of face, the height of cheekbones, the build of the chest.
But the Barrani of Kaylin’s acquaintance didn’t have three eyes.
“Gilbert?”
“I am here.”
“Can you see what—what they see?”
“In this room, Kaylin, I can see nothing. I think it more likely that at the moment, you see only what I see.”
“What they see—it’s real.” There was a hint of question in the statement.
“Yes. It is not precisely what I see. You do not see dreams when you wake.”
“Dreams aren’t real.”
“Are they not?”
She closed her eyes. Severn, I need you to speak.
“What do you need me to say?”
“Just speak.”
He did. Severn wasn’t much of a talker. He didn’t tell stories; he didn’t offer many humorous anecdotes. What he did, instead, was describe the body. He pulled the sheet down and folded it. The body was definitely male. Severn touched its face, ran the tips of his fingers over the lids of closed eyes.
Through their connection, Kaylin felt what he felt. She saw what he saw. She understood why the Hawks had used both ice and marble as descriptions. What she could not see was herself.
Opening her eyes, she could see the trail left by the simple act of breathing in a very cold place. It hung in the air, and unlike breath, it didn’t dissipate. Kaylin raised her left arm; gold light was reflected by this odd cloud.
“Can you put your palms on his chest?”
Severn didn’t ask her why. Teela did.
“If there are words in this room, this is where they have to be,” Kaylin replied.
“You’re certain?”
“As certain as I can be.”
This didn’t impress Teela. To be fair, it didn’t impress Kaylin, either.
Healing had been the one blessing to come out of the marks that adorned her skin. It had always just worked. It hadn’t required practice or lessons or experience. She had saved lives—for the midwives, in the Foundling Hall, in the Halls of Law—merely by desiring it. She hadn’t studied bodies; she hadn’t studied herbs or plants or esoteric branches of magic.
This was the first time that healing had not worked on its own, as a function of Kaylin’s will. It was the first time she had resented her own ignorance so viscerally. Or maybe not. At heart, she was mostly ignorant. She’d gained enough experience that she could frequently hide it. But not from herself.
Not when it counted.
She kicked herself. Now was not the time for this. She could hate herself later.
* * *
Her breath had come out in mist, and the mist had gathered, condensing. She couldn’t stop breathing, and as she did, more mist joined the mist that hovered just in front of her, above the floor.
Kaylin moved to stand in what she thought might be the position Severn now occupied. She could feel the cold, hard lines of the body’s chest beneath his palms. Fortunately, Severn’s hands weren’t numb yet, despite the chill in the air.
“This,” she said aloud, “is a total pain.”
“You expected something easier?”
The mist before her eyes did not, as Kaylin half hoped, solidify. Not entirely. But it moved more like smoke than air. Strands of silvered white twisted around each other; she could both see them and see through them. They had dimension. She couldn’t see any words; the mist moved too much.
“They are there,” her familiar said, appearing by her left shoulder. “They are a microcosm of this place. You can see them only because you are entwined with Gilbert’s consciousness. You cannot touch them.”
“Can you?”
“Not as I am.”
“Am I—am I doing the right thing?”
“I cannot answer that question. There are too many variables.”
“Will this heal Gilbert?”
“Ah. I do not know, Kaylin. I do not know what you are now attempting to do.”
She looked at the flat, bright marks on her arms. “...Neither do I. I’m just thinking of all the old stories.”
“Stories?”
“The Barrani. The Ancients. The True Names. True words.”
“They are more than just stories.”
“I didn’t say they were just stories. But...they are stories.” She hesitated and then added, “A lot of our actual experiences become stories. Things we tell other people. Things we don’t tell other people. It’s not just about the words. But...sometimes words are what we have. They’re not everything; they have to be enough.”
“Even the words that you don’t understand?”
She looked at her arms. “Even then. Because these words are part of me. Maybe if I use them enough, I’ll understand them so well I can say what I really mean with them.”
“What do you really mean, Kaylin?”
Kaylin blinked. “I’m not talking about right now. But—in general. I can’t always say what I mean. No, that’s wrong. People don’t always hear what I thought I was saying. I mean, they hear what I actually say.”
“Ah. So you feel you choose the wrong words?”
“I must. If I’d chosen the right ones, they’d understand me.”
“I do not think it is ever that simple.”
“It would be if I could speak true words.”
“Ah, no. Because anyone with whom you might converse so earnestly wouldn’t hear them. But the words that you seek are here. You cannot see them; there is too much flicker, too much movement.”
“Can Gilbert?”
Silence. To her surprise, Hope broke it. “Your instincts have always been good. No, Kaylin. What he could perceive before you entered this chamber was even less than you yourself now see. You breathe. You live.”
“You once ate a word.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. Could Gilbert do the same thing?”
“I do not know. What you see in Gilbert, I do not see—except through you. It is similar to what you now see when you speak with your Severn.”
“What I see?”
“You see what is here where you are standing—but also, because of your bond, where he is standing. You feel what his hands touch. You see what his eyes see. And he sees the inverse. I do not know how you intend to utilize this. Both are, as you suspect, real.”
“Why am I not where he is? I can hear his voice—”
“Because you have moved aside one or two steps. Not all beings can see all realities. Mandoran and Annarion are aware of many—but not all.”
“Why are there—why is there more than one? No, never mind—answer that later.”
“The answer, of course, is that there is only one. But you were not created in a way that allows you to see and retain it all. You are like a fish. If you are born in air, you will die; if you are forced to spend time out of the water, you will also die. What you see in the water can be seen—if the water is clear—from the air, but it will not be seen in the same way.
“Gilbert is a creature who can be at home in either the water or the air—as are your two friends. But sometimes, he carries pockets of air with him, and if your Severn is caught in one, being a fish, he will die. There is no malice involved, but that does not make the danger of death any less real.
/>
“You are trying, in your fashion, to allow Gilbert to survive in the water without the benefit of the air that will kill you. I do not know if that is healing in any precise sense of the word.” He hesitated.
She marked it.
“Is the body that Severn can see Gilbert’s actual body?”
“Choose, Kaylin. You are not a bird. You must return to the water, soon.”
* * *
Kaylin lifted her right hand to her forehead. This mark was not one of the marks granted her by Ancients who’d never asked permission; it was a True Name. It was a name she had gathered and placed onto her own skin to preserve it.
It belonged to the Barrani. She knew this.
But it was the only True Name she had. She could not return to the Lake of Life to capture another word from its waters; not in time. She very much doubted that she would be allowed to do so even if time weren’t an issue.
She lowered her hand. The word had not left her forehead.
Grinding her teeth, she lifted her hand again. Her breath—because she’d continued to breathe—filled the air in front of her. As if she were a Dragon on a bad day, it had filled the room like smoke. And yes, she could now see the ghosts of words lingering in its folds.
This was what she needed, but it was only part of what she needed. The rest? Attached to her. Now that she knew this, the words were flat and dimensionless, of course.
This would not be the first time she’d tried to pick them off. But the last time, she’d been a terrified child.
Keep your hands where they are, she told Severn.
He nodded; she felt it. She lifted her hands again, but this time she tried to remember what it felt like to find a word in the Lake of Life. The Lake had not appeared as a lake; it had appeared as a...a desk. The surface of a desk. A place upon which words were written. Yet her hands had slid below that surface—
She did not want her hands to slide beneath the surface of her own skin. In her own reality, that would be impossible. But in Gilbert’s?
In Gilbert’s reality, the rules were different. Inhaling, she focused on her memories. Her hands had fallen below the hard surface of the table, and she had—eventually—found a word whose shape and weight seemed right. Here, there was no search. She only had one word, of the many, that could function as life.
Cast in Honor (The Chronicles of Elantra) Page 20