Cast in Oblivion

by Michelle Sagara

  Is he also like you are? Is he name-bound?

  Ynpharion did not answer, not directly. Do not give me your pity. This was icier than any of his prior words. Do you not understand the honor of my position? I will serve as the Lady desires. I will be of use to her. If I die in pursuit of that, my death will have meaning.

  But Ynpharion was bound to Kaylin because he had, like many Barrani, attempted to divest himself of the shackles of having a True Name. Somehow. Kaylin wasn’t clear on what he had attempted, and wasn’t clear how it was sold to him, how it was supposed to work. He had certainly been able to voluntarily alter his form, because he hadn’t looked anything like a Barrani when they’d crossed paths.

  My life had no meaning, he said. It had no meaning. There was power, and the pursuit of power; there was a certainty of my own insignificance because I had achieved no power of note. My service would not have been offered, because I was too lowborn, too insignificant. To approach the Lady would have been impossible in any but a ceremonial, perfunctory way.

  She’s not like that.

  She is part of the High Court, arguably second only to the High Lord. She behaves differently, yes—but she has the comfort and security of her position in which to push boundaries of behavior. Most of us do not—and will not—have that. And that is not the point. Were she to command me, I would do what she desires. She has not done so, yet. Were I you? I would do what she desires.

  But, Chosen, he continued, I am not you. Were I to do what she asks of you, I would not earn the anger of An’Teela. And if you do what the Consort requests, the Lady will earn that anger. I do not believe An’Teela will hold disobedience against you. She seems almost to expect it.

  So...you would do what the Consort wants?

  I would, were I you. But were I you, I would have the same concerns as the Consort, and in this, I do not. The names of the lost are the names of the weak; they are those who were easily influenced, and therefore easily corrupted. Such names, such people, weaken the race, and the Shadows loom above us all as a threat that can even be the bridge to end wars.

  Kaylin’s smidgen of sympathy for Ynpharion guttered instantly.

  We cannot afford that weakness, Ynpharion continued. Ask your friend, the Dragon. Ask what the cost of that weakness was.

  So. You think it’s too much of a risk, but you would do it, anyway.

  Silence.

  Severn said nothing, loudly. No other voices were present, and Kaylin did not want to reach out to Nightshade to ask.

  What the Consort wanted, Kaylin wanted: to open the gates of the hell in which the ghosts of the dead remained trapped for eternity. To free them. They might not want it for the same reason—but Kaylin knew that both the High Lord and the Consort could hear the wails of the damned in the private quarters above the shadowed cavern in which their enemy lay, and had lain for centuries, feeding on the Barrani.

  It had almost killed her to hear it once.

  She understood what Ynpharion was afraid of. She understood that Teela was also afraid of it; thought that Bellusdeo might, if push came to shove, agree with Ynpharion, a thought that pleased neither her nor the Barrani in question.

  She rose.

  Teela’s expression hardened, but Kaylin shook her head, both mutinously and apologetically. “I’m not a real member of the High Court,” she told the Barrani Hawk. “I understand why you don’t want it to be me who does this. But someone is going to do it tonight, and... I believe what the Consort believes.”

  “No one is going to do this tonight if you don’t,” Teela said in Elantran.

  And the Consort—also in Elantran—said, “There is a reason that I have only two guards with me today. Lord Kaylin is correct. If she won’t or can’t, one of my personal guards will step forward to do so. What I want is what Kaylin wants—but I don’t believe we have a hope of success if the cohort doesn’t understand what they might face.”

  “I can talk about it,” Kaylin continued, her voice soft and even pleading. “It doesn’t matter to me if I’m tossed out of the High Court—I’m a figurehead member with no standing. I get nothing out of it but humiliation at the office. It’s not going to make or break my life or my future.”

  “You cannot know that,” Teela said softly. She glanced at Tain. Tain said nothing. “Kitling—”

  “They’re going to take the test.” Kaylin folded her arms. “They’re at risk. We’re all at risk. And since they’re going anyway, we need to tell them what we know—and frankly, I know almost nothing. I mean, I can’t believe that parents don’t tell their children before they face the test, Barrani law or custom notwithstanding. It must be a polite fiction that no one talks.”

  You are so mortal, Ynpharion said.

  “Barrani lie all the time. They play at games of politics as if there’s an assassination scorecard. You think they’re honest about this?”

  So very, very mortal.

  “The reason there’s a Test of Name at all is because there’s a powerful Shadow trapped at the base of the High Halls.”

  Chapter 9

  Kaylin, born—as far as she knew—in the fief of Nightshade, didn’t believe that life was fair. It wasn’t. She knew it. But if life wasn’t fair, she reserved the right to whine about it. She resented the fact that she was risking Teela’s wrath—or worse, disappointment—solely to protect Ynpharion, a Barrani who hated and despised her.

  Not only that, but he wouldn’t—and didn’t—appreciate the effort; it was likely to lower his general opinion of her, although on most days that was probably impossible.

  You continually surprise me, he said, his tone confirming her suspicions. I am not your friend. I am not An’Teela’s friend. If you died and your knowledge of my name therefore died with you, I would be a happy man. We can, however, discuss this later if you insist; the Consort is waiting.

  The Consort wasn’t the only one. All eyes had swiveled toward Kaylin, and while Kaylin was human enough to want attention, this was not the kind of attention she sometimes craved. She’d had nightmares like this—but, on the bright side, at least she was still wearing clothing.

  “We have designations for Shadows as they escape Ravellon. The Ferals, for instance. But dangerous Shadow—”

  “It is all dangerous,” Bellusdeo said. Her eyes were an orange-red. The Arkon’s, however, remained an orange-gold.

  “We call those one-offs. It means,” Kaylin added, “unique. Something we haven’t encountered before. There are Records in the Halls of Law, but our beat isn’t expected to cover the Shadows, so there are large gaps in our knowledge.”

  “Canyons are not generally considered gaps,” Bellusdeo said.

  “Bellusdeo,” the Arkon said quietly. “If we are to lament our ignorance about Shadow, we might be here all year. Please. Allow Lord Kaylin to continue.”

  Kaylin nodded to both Dragons. “The Shadow beneath the High Halls is unique. I’m not Barrani. I came to the High Halls because Teela—Oh, never mind. I was at the High Halls for reasons that had nothing to do with the Test of Name.”

  “And you just stumbled into it?” Mandoran asked. Terrano’s expression was one of open disbelief—not so much at the facts, because he accepted those, as at Kaylin herself.

  “More or less. Look—no one told me that the Tower and the Test of Name were so crucial to the Barrani. I knew nothing about it. Racial integration classes don’t cover Barrani minutiae.”

  “Minutiae.” That was Sedarias.

  “Mostly the Barrani aren’t our problem, speaking as a Hawk. If the Barrani break laws—no, sorry, when the Barrani break laws and the Hawks catch even the slightest wind of it—the lawbreakers wind up dead, on our doorstep. The Barrani High Court says ‘laws of exemption’ more often than it says anything else when dealing with the Halls of Law.” She grimaced. “Sorry. I didn’t know that I was taking an incredibly important
test at the time.”

  “What, exactly, did you think you were doing?”

  Kaylin realized then that this was going to be an even worse conversation than she’d imagined. “Getting lost?”

  “I begin to understand why Teela worries so much about you, even if you are Chosen. I will endeavor to listen without comment going forward.”

  Terrano snorted.

  “The Tower offers a word—or at least it offered me a word.”

  “And that word?”

  “It apparently differs depending on who enters the Tower, and I don’t think it really matters. There are two levels of test that the Tower offers. I think it’s a space not unlike the Hallionne, but far more limited in scope. What I saw, what Severn saw, is not what you’ll see. Direction shifts; architecture shifts. I think we’re moving through the same space, but we don’t perceive it the same way.

  “What I saw...” She shook her head.

  “What Lord Kaylin encountered for the early part of her test was not something any of you will encounter,” the Consort said firmly. And forbiddingly.

  “We don’t know that,” Kaylin said.

  “We don’t, no. I do. Your task was similar, in the end, to my final test. More than that, Lord Kaylin, you will not say.”

  “So...you want me to break the unwritten law and talk about what I saw, but not all of it, and only the relevant parts.”

  “That is how we always discuss matters of import,” the Consort replied. Her tone was cool; her eyes had shaded to blue.

  “Fine. We were—Severn and I—trying to get out of the Tower. As far as I can tell, no matter what else the Tower does or does not do, there’s only one way out, and the Shadow sits in front of it.” She inhaled, held breath for a few long seconds and exhaled, trying to loosen the line of her shoulders, which had bunched up almost to her ears.

  “I had a medallion given to me by Sanabalis.” At the Arkon’s wince, she quickly said, “Lord Sanabalis. It’s not this one,” she added.

  “I should hope not,” the Arkon said, his voice as chilly as the Consort’s, his eyes more orange.

  “It helped. But the Shadow is...” She fell silent. “I can only tell you what I saw and what I heard. The Shadow exists at the base of the Tower—and my guess is that anyone who makes it that far sees the same thing, in the end. But...”

  Teela had folded her arms; her lips were one thin, compressed line.

  “But every single person who has ever taken—and failed—that test remains with the Shadow itself. The Shadow speaks, and its voice is...compelling. It doesn’t look human, doesn’t look Barrani.”

  “Are they alive?” Annarion asked. Of course it was Annarion.

  “Alive?”

  “Those that failed the test. Are they alive, somehow?”

  Kaylin shook her head. “I don’t think so. But they’re not absent, either. They have voices, and...” She swallowed. “I don’t know if Barrani have any concept of heaven or hell. But they don’t really need it, when they have that Shadow sitting in wait. If the Barrani who are trapped there—and have been for centuries, as far as I can tell—aren’t dead, they’re still somehow aware. And they’ve been in a hell of that Shadow’s devising since the moment they failed the test.” She swallowed and looked to the Consort, who nodded.

  “The High Lord and the Lady hear their cries. They can hear them from the moment they ascend to the seats of the High Court. They know what the High Halls jails.”

  “It is the most difficult part of the burden of rulership,” the Consort said quietly.

  “The reminder of failure?” Sedarias asked.

  “Were they truly dead,” the Consort continued, as if Sedarias had not spoken, “it would not be so disturbing. But their names—all of their names—are forever lost to us. They do not and have not returned to the Lake, which gives rise to Barrani life. And while the Shadow remains, they will not.”

  The Arkon rumbled. Literally. The entire table seemed to shake.

  Bellusdeo immediately turned to him. “What do you know of this, Lannagaros?”

  “You are aware—more than any of us—of the Shadows at war. You are aware of the cost of loss. Historically, our peoples have been enemies, and the result of that enmity has been disastrous. But it is nothing to the cost of the war with Shadows. There is no end to the battle; there is no peace that endures.

  “The High Halls has not always been the seat of Barrani power—Barrani government, if you will. But the building itself has been some part of what has now become Elantra for almost as long as the wars between our kind existed.”

  The Consort raised a brow.

  “I do not know what your history documents, Lady, and I do not know if our suppositions have been shared. I will not, however, stoop to say that they are inaccurate.”

  She inclined her chin, looking—suddenly—every inch an empress. She said nothing, however.

  “But it is our belief that the first of the wars that encompassed all of our kind started, in the end, because of that Shadow. It has long attempted to prey upon our two peoples, with greater and lesser success, but it was not contained in the same fashion it is now contained. The end of the first war saw an end to the Shadow’s freedom to move, but the current containment saw the destruction of most of the building that preceded the High Halls.”

  Helen said, “Only the Tower remains.”

  Everyone in the room turned toward the Avatar, who actually seemed to redden. “It is not well-known, Arkon. And my own history, my own records of that time, were much damaged in the interim.” She didn’t say by who, but it was irrelevant to most of them. Not to Kaylin, who would not otherwise be living here. “It was understood that the building itself reorganized the power inherent in its structure to contain the Shadow. Entry was not forbidden, but the Tower itself could not prevent its prisoner from harming those who did enter.”

  “Was it a building like you?” Kaylin asked.

  “Inasmuch as sentient buildings are like a race, yes—but you have come to understand that while we share some functionality, we are all individuals. It is not unlike the mobile races; they share the general conditions of their race, but are otherwise unique.” She turned to the Arkon and the Consort. “My apologies for interrupting.”

  “If all interruptions were so relevant,” the Arkon said in his grave voice, “I would welcome interruption. For my own part, feel free to interrupt if you feel you have any information that we lack.” His tone made clear that he was certain she did.

  “It is not always clear to me when information is relevant; I have been mistaken in the past.”

  “I am willing to trust your instincts. I will take no offense at all at any interruption.”

  Kaylin tried not to grind her teeth.

  “I am not in my library, Private. Nor am I immersed in somewhat delicate experiments. I am a guest here; the scope of my responsibilities while I am within your domicile are largely social.”

  This caused the Consort to chuckle. “I feel that Lord Kaylin visits you more frequently than she visits the High Halls.”

  “To both of our regrets, I am sure.”

  The cohort relaxed slightly. Ynpharion, however, did not, and Kaylin chose—for reasons that weren’t clear even to her—to take her cues from Ynpharion.

  “Yes. But we have interrupted Lord Kaylin.” Or from the Consort, as it happened.

  Kaylin cleared her throat. “The Shadow beneath the High Halls can take the names of those who fail the test. I don’t know how. I don’t understand the mechanism. But... It doesn’t destroy the names. If the names were consumed, the Consort wouldn’t be here.”

  “I might well be,” the Consort replied, although technically Kaylin hadn’t directed the comment at her. “Anything that destroys those names lessens the future possibility of my people. It depletes the Lake. But it is my belief t
hat you are correct. The words are not consumed; they are contained. They are caged.

  “But they are not always caged. Although we have been limited in our studies and our research—for obvious reasons—it has become clear that at least in one or two cases the Shadow allows its victim to leave. The victim is, in effect, name-bound. The control is not perfect, but the influence itself appears to be strong. I believe the Shadow is substantially different from us; its attempts to exert control are not successful because of that large difference.”

  “You mean it doesn’t fully understand people.”

  “Yes. It doesn’t understand our limitations. Some of its commands—and this is entirely theoretical—instruct the name-bound to do things that cannot be done. By us.”

  Teela was now the color of wax. The rest of the cohort, buoyed by the typical arrogance of Barrani, were not. But they were quieter now, as they considered the relevance of the Consort’s words.

  Kaylin did so, as well. Mandoran and Annarion could already do things that Barrani—and mortals like Kaylin—couldn’t.

  Her familiar, draped around her shoulders like an afterthought, lifted his head and squawked relatively quietly in her ear.

  “Fine. And other mortals who aren’t Chosen. Better?”

  The familiar made a whiffling noise and lowered his head again. After yawning.

  “Attempts to destroy the Shadow—and perhaps Shadows similar to it—failed in the past. We have historical records of some of those attempts, and I am certain that the Dragons retain some, as well. But it is our—no, my—belief that the reason those attempts were failures was the nature of that Shadow itself. What we can destroy is physical; it is the portion of Shadow that exists where we exist—possibly in order to interact with us, to entrap us.

  “Kaylin—Lord Kaylin—has entertained, as a guest, a Shadow.”