Cast in Deception

by Michelle Sagara

  He didn’t tell the Dragon to let him go. “It’s not a danger—we need to land before we lose it!”

  It’s not a danger my butt, Kaylin thought. “Bellusdeo—”

  “He’s insane. That’s a Shadow—”

  The familiar squawked. Although in theory his throat and jaws were much, much smaller, his screeching got through, and the Dragon immediately changed direction.

  * * *

  Terrano did not stop cursing when they landed; the landing was rough, but he managed to squeak out a single command: stay on the ground!

  And ground still existed. It was the lake that had vanished. So had the creature, although something amorphous and foggy remained in its place; something smaller, with—thankfully—less visible definition. Terrano shook himself free of the Dragon’s teeth; the Dragon was making spitting noises, as if he’d left something behind and she didn’t want it staying in her mouth.

  Terrano, however, didn’t seem to notice. He raced across the ground, his stride almost unnaturally long.

  The familiar squawked loudly, and Terrano shuddered at the sound, but his stride narrowed and although he didn’t stop moving once, he slowed. Kaylin had no idea what he intended to do; she expected him to stop once he reached what her eyes perceived as the edge of the mass.

  But no, that would have been too sensible. He did pause, but only to bend into his knees, readjust his weight, and throw his arms back to provide momentum.

  He leapt into the shimmering mass, and disappeared from sight.

  21

  “Should we be worried?” Bellusdeo asked; she retained draconic shape and size.

  “You’re not?” Kaylin replied, the words drifting over her shoulder as she ran. The familiar on her shoulder was sitting upright, and his squawk was shrill. He lifted a wing and smacked it across Kaylin’s face, but didn’t withdraw it. The wing did not reveal anything that her own eyes didn’t see.

  He bit her ear as she slowed. She could hear voices.

  “Do you intend to follow?” Bellusdeo could move. Although the size of the form made her movements feel slower, they weren’t.

  “I don’t know where he went. What do you see?”

  “Haze.”

  Kaylin nodded. “Terrano!”

  No answer.

  “He really does remind me of Mandoran,” the Dragon said, in a far more natural voice. “I want to strangle him.”

  “Stand in line.” And then, casting a backward glance at her companion, Kaylin added, “You sure you want to lose the size advantage?”

  “The ground is still here. Terrano, in some fashion, is still present. And I think he may need help.”

  “Will he need any help that we can give him?”

  “True. Move over.”

  Kaylin rolled her eyes, but before she could respond, the eye that was covered by translucent wing caught movement in the haze. Something that looked like fog, but grayer, darker. It had no distinct shape, not immediately; it looked more like a body bag. She could not see it through her right eye. “I take it back,” she told the Dragon.

  “What’s changed?”

  “I think there is something in there.”

  “Terrano?”

  “He didn’t answer.”

  “Maybe,” the Dragon said, glancing at Kaylin, “he couldn’t hear you.” It was just enough warning that Kaylin could bring both her hands to cover her ears. Or one hand; Spike was in the other and she didn’t think attempting to jam half of him into her ears was going to help her hearing much.

  Bellusdeo roared. Kaylin was vaguely impressed that the roar encompassed syllables. Something in the fog, however, was not; it froze. The Dragon’s voice appeared to echo; the ground started to shift beneath their feet.

  A head poked out of the haze. It didn’t appear to be attached to anything else, but Kaylin recognized it immediately. She also recognized the expression. “Will you stop that right now? You’re panicking everyone!”

  Bellusdeo folded her arms, but fell silent.

  “Step back,” Kaylin suggested.

  “No.”

  “I don’t think he’s bringing anything through that can kill us.”

  “Not us, no.”

  “Fine. I don’t think he’s bringing anything that can kill me.”

  “That is inaccurate,” Spike said.

  Her familiar hissed. The laughing hiss. “Nothing that will kill me, then.”

  “That is conjecture,” Spike replied.

  “Are you capturing this?”

  “Yes. I am uncertain that you will be able to view it. Your vision is extremely limited, as is your ability to interact with the world.”

  Kaylin sometimes felt like companions were just a form of portable criticism, like portable mirrors, but less helpful.

  “I believe Terrano is attempting to engage the layer that you occupy now. He is having some difficulty.”

  The small dragon withdrew his wing with a noisy, rattling sigh. He looked pointedly at his theoretical master, and she nodded. “Go.”

  He lifted himself off her shoulder as Bellusdeo said, “He should stay in contact with you.” But there was a slight rise at the end of that statement, as if the sensible warning was uttered with some doubt.

  If the familiar heard, he failed to reply; instead, he floated toward the visible haze. He didn’t disappear into it, which was good, but inhaled as if he intended to breathe on it, which was less good. Maybe.

  He exhaled a cloud of silver mist while she was still considering.

  Where the mist hit the haze, the two combined. She had half expected the haze to freeze, but it didn’t. It seemed to become more solid—and more silver—where the familiar’s breath touched it, but no distinct shape emerged from the combination. He inhaled and breathed again. The mass became harder, reflecting a light that didn’t have any obvious source.

  As it did, Kaylin thought it looked like a cave, or a silvery, slightly melted version of a cave. And standing in its mouth, she could see Terrano. He had his left arm beneath the arms of another person, or at least something vaguely person-shaped, and as he approached the mouth of the cave, that person began to...cohere. She was a Barrani female, or rather, the ghost of one; she was transparent, but not in the way Kaylin’s familiar was. Terrano’s arm should have passed through her. It didn’t. But Kaylin was certain he would be the only person present who could touch her.

  The stranger lifted her head; her hair was ghostly, all color leached from it by lack of solidity. She lifted her chin, straightened her shoulders, but did not pull away from Terrano. Possibly because she couldn’t. His grip was tight, his eyes the darkness of chaos or shadow. His form, however, did not waver.

  He pulled her out of the cave.

  She lost solidity, and he cursed; his grip appeared to tighten, but it tightened on smoke. Before he could shift it, she melted away again. Terrano sagged. “They never listened to me,” he told Kaylin. “Mandoran did sometimes, but the others, not so much.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Is,” was his defensive reply. He looked exhausted as he turned, once again, to the cave mouth. To the familiar, he said, “Can you hold this space?”

  Squawk.

  “Good. I have to leave it in your hands. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get them out of there if I don’t.”

  * * *

  It took Terrano three tries to free one of the cohort. But the third time she began to lose cohesion, she frowned, her eyes narrowing. Kaylin could practically see the blue in their ghostly appearance; she could certainly see the narrowing of lips and the determined tightening of jaw.

  “Sedarias?” Kaylin asked.

  The woman looked up at the sound of Kaylin’s voice, her eyes changing shape. She caught Terrano’s arm in her insubstantial hands, and as she wavered, Kaylin called her
name again. The dissipation stopped; the ghost almost appeared to be sweating with effort. She began to walk, to take steps—all silent—as Terrano supported her.

  Kaylin came face-to-face with Sedarias. Sedarias did not take on color, she didn’t become solid. But she was, in as much as Kaylin thought she could be, here. She opened her mouth, but no words left her moving lips. And then her lips stopped moving as she caught sight of the Dragon.

  * * *

  To Kaylin’s surprise, Sedarias bowed. She had expected a reaction similar to Terrano’s, but remembered that Sedarias, unlike Terrano, was linked—or had been linked—to Mandoran, Annarion and Teela. What they saw, or at least what the first two saw, she also saw. She therefore knew Bellusdeo at least as well as the boys did.

  Given what they said about Sedarias, probably better.

  Bellusdeo returned the bow. Her eyes were a shade of orange that was probably about as close to gold as they could be, given her location.

  Terrano exhaled and frowned. After a moment, he called Sedarias by name, and she turned to him, her own expression rippling. She spoke silently again, but he could apparently read her lips; he nodded and headed back to the cave.

  One by one, he pulled the cohort out of it. Allaron was next; he was as large as Kaylin remembered, towering over the rest of his cohort by half a head. It was almost comical to see Terrano supporting him, but he didn’t disperse as Sedarias had done. Sedarias, in turn, had come to stand slightly in front of Kaylin and Bellusdeo, and Kaylin was certain she was giving directions—to Allaron, at least. They were bound by True Name. Whatever she had done to breach the invisible threshold, she had clearly communicated to the rest of her friends. Whatever cut Kaylin off from the small host of people to whom she was likewise connected did not appear to affect the cohort. Then again, they were in this space together.

  Valliant came next; his name in other circumstances still made Kaylin snicker. Fallessian, Serralyn, Torrisant, Karian and finally Eddorian, joined them. They were, to a person, as ghostly as Sedarias; none of them, however, looked as annoyed. No, Kaylin thought, she wasn’t annoyed, she was angry. If her eyes had had color, they’d be midnight blue.

  Terrano turned to Kaylin once the last of the cohort were as present as they were going to get. He glanced at the familiar, his natural suspicion and caution immediately obvious. The familiar generally glared at the former member of the cohort, but he wasn’t doing that now; instead, he was surveying them all from Kaylin’s shoulder—which, given the difference in height, should have looked ridiculous, but didn’t.

  The cohort couldn’t speak in any way that Kaylin could hear.

  They suddenly turned toward her, all eyes moving as one, which was kind of creepy until she realized they were looking at the familiar. He was squawking, but quietly.

  “This is going to get complicated,” the Hawk told the Dragon. “Spike?”

  “I am here.”

  “Can you hear them?”

  There was a very long pause as the spiked silver ball digested the question. “You cannot hear them?” he finally asked, with far more hesitance than he generally displayed.

  “No. Neither the Dragon nor I can hear them.”

  “Terrano can?”

  “Terrano,” Terrano said, “can. But not clearly, and not well.” He hesitated himself, and then added, “they can clearly hear each other.” Again, Kaylin thought there was something wistful in his comment, but he spoiled it by adding, “Listening to Sedarias in her current mood, on the other hand, anyone sane could do without.”

  “She looks angry.”

  “She’s beyond angry.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “They encountered a trap.”

  “That thing we saw? The Shadow?”

  He nodded. “It’s not a complicated Shadow.” Glancing at Kaylin’s left hand, he added, “Spike is complicated. This one wasn’t. But we spent centuries figuring out ways around Alsanis and his various walls and cages. Sedarias realized what was happening just before it did happen, and they all managed to avoid it.”

  “So...their state is voluntary?”

  He winced. “None of them were as good at it as I was. And Sedarias isn’t—wasn’t—notably flexible. She and Annarion weren’t the best.”

  Kaylin had seen Annarion alter his shape—without intent—before. She disagreed with Terrano, but kept it to herself.

  He glanced at Kaylin again, exhaled, and said, “But she heard you when you called her name. They all heard you.”

  “Did they hear me because Sedarias heard me?”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re certain?”

  “They are.”

  “If it’s possible,” the Dragon interjected, “could we have the rest of this discussion somewhere else? I’m not entirely certain we’re safe here.”

  Unfortunately for the Dragon, who was practicing common sense, Spike said, “If you desire it, I can translate for you. I did not realize your hearing was so inadequate.”

  * * *

  Bellusdeo had had enough experience with Gilbert that she barely flinched when Spike spoke. And she had had enough experience with being a captive pawn to Shadow, or the Shadow in Ravellon, that she was willing—with effort—to see Spike as someone who was, when free, no threat to all of the rest of the living. But it was hard, and her eyes remained a steady, burning orange.

  “If you’d like,” Spike continued, “I can attempt to alter the range of your hearing; you would not require—”

  “No, thank you,” Bellusdeo said, her voice falling into draconic rumbling.

  “Kaylin?”

  “Could you do it safely?”

  The question caused Spike to whir a bit as he considered it. Terrano clearly found this more amusing than pulling almost insubstantial people out of a cave.

  “I do not understand the question.”

  “Oh?” the Dragon asked.

  “I do not understand how you are using the term ‘safely.’ I cannot do so without making some changes in the actual mechanism, no.”

  “No,” Bellusdeo repeated, making less effort to be polite since it was clearly wasted. “If Sedarias and her friends now exist on a plane with which we would never otherwise interact, the hearing—for our kind—is not required.”

  “But Kaylin desires communication.”

  Bellusdeo snorted. Small tufts of smoke were twined around the exhaled breath. The familiar also snorted, but then proceeded to squawk at Spike. Several times.

  “I don’t know about you,” the Dragon added, “but I consider the possibility that there are unseen things living in the exact same space as I am extremely disturbing.”

  Kaylin shrugged. “If we can’t normally see, hear, speak with, touch or otherwise be affected by them, I don’t see why.”

  “You mean that?”

  “For all intents and purposes, it’s like they’re not there.” She shrugged again, uncomfortably aware of the Dragon’s stare. “Look, you grew up in an Aerie, and you even remember a lot of it. I grew up in the fiefs. I had no fixed home; we had places where we squatted. Some were too exposed. I used to daydream of being able to live in a safe place—a single safe place—that we could call home.

  “It’s like—like there’s a space, and more people can live in it. And they don’t get in each other’s way. They don’t hurt each other at all.” She exhaled. “That part’s the important one. We’re all minding our own business. We don’t have to be aware of everyone else’s.”

  “I am never going to understand mortals.” The Dragon exhaled, and some of the tension left the stiff line of her shoulders. “Regardless, we need to get them out of wherever it is they are. I don’t want Spike to play around with our ears.”

  “They’re not quite anywhere,” Terrano told them both. “They’re in between states.” When this c
learly failed to enlighten either Kaylin or Bellusdeo, he added, “It’s like they’re stuck in a door between two rooms. They’re not in one and they’re not in the other.”

  “Was that the point of the trap?”

  “No. The trap was probably meant to devour them.”

  “Was it Shadow?”

  He hesitated, and then glanced at Spike.

  Spike, on the other hand, said, “Yes. I do not believe you should remain here.”

  “And you’re safe?”

  “I am safe,” he replied, without a hint of smugness.

  This, on the other hand, caught Bellusdeo’s attention. “There is Shadow here, or near here?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it will not affect you.”

  “No.”

  “I think she wants a bit more of an explanation, Spike.”

  “It is not diverse enough to affect me. It was meant for you. Or for them,” he added.

  “Can you see it?”

  The ball had no face, and therefore made no facial expressions, but Kaylin could almost feel frustration radiating from its core.

  “I can sense it,” Terrano broke in. He glanced at Spike and shrugged. “It’s gathering over there.” He lifted an arm and pointed into the distance to the left of where Kaylin was standing.

  “And you’re not in danger either?” the Dragon demanded.

  “Not from this, no.”

  “Why?”

  “I no longer have a name. Shadow doesn’t seek to learn True Names; it seeks to change their essential structure. Where there are no names, it has more freedom to alter the base material.”

  “But if you—”

  “My friends have more freedom than the rest of the Barrani have; more freedom, certainly, than Teela will now ever have. You encountered the Barrani who had reformed their bodies—they also had more freedom than Teela. And no,” he added, “I’m not going to go into the boring details. If you’re careful, the name isn’t a cage.”

  “I do not understand why Barrani are so obsessed with their names,” Bellusdeo said. “Dragons have them and we accept them. Attempting to somehow remove the dependence on True Names seems akin to suicide.”