Cast in Oblivion

by Michelle Sagara

  “Kaylin?” She felt a hand on her arm, but that realization was slower in coming than it would have been had she not been trying so hard to be where Nightshade was.

  Something about the breeze was wrong. She could hear it. She could hear it as if it were howling wind. No, not even that. She could hear it as if it were a voice, raised to shouting, but at a distance.

  Something about the sound was familiar to Kaylin. As she concentrated, as she put the brunt of her focus into listening, it became clearer.

  Is it dangerous?

  I...don’t think so. She was frowning; the hand on her arm lifted as she once again began to walk. She didn’t open her eyes—but she often listened with her eyes closed. It was too easy to be distracted, otherwise. Yes, it was familiar. No, in theory it wasn’t dangerous—not intentionally dangerous.

  She drew breath with her own lungs, detaching herself from Nightshade’s hearing. I think—I think it’s Terrano. Terrano, the only member of the cohort that Teela couldn’t reach, and couldn’t therefore track.

  Nightshade relayed this information to both Teela and Evarrim; Teela’s expression became completely neutral.

  An’Teela wishes you to join us, he finally said, although Teela had said nothing of the kind. Regardless, Kaylin was certain he was right.

  * * *

  The Consort began her descent with more grace and less speed than those who’d been sent to scout. She allowed a shift in marching orders, and Severn remained with her, as did Ynpharion; Kaylin, enrobed in flame, headed down the stairs. She wasn’t Barrani; she took far longer to cover the distance than any of the scouts had.

  Teela was waiting, her eyes narrowed, her lips thinned. And as Kaylin finally reached the three, she became certain the strangely muted voice she could hear was Terrano’s.

  Hope’s wing brushed her cheek, and she turned. “It is Terrano,” Hope said. “He is unnamed.”

  “I was unnamed,” Kaylin shot back. “And I was still allowed entry here.”

  “You are never unnamed here. You bear the marks of the Chosen.”

  “Fine. Severn was unnamed.”

  “Severn followed you. He remained in your orbit. What you saw and what he saw differed—but he was considered some part of you. Or so I believe.”

  She frowned. “The Tower allowed the Ferals.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because it recognized their names? I mean, the words?”

  “That is my belief. It is Spike’s belief, as well. It is why the Hallionne allow guests who have previously paid the price of entry to return. They can revoke that permission, but it is a deliberate decision, and the permission itself must be altered. It is not, in Spike’s opinion, entirely trivial.”

  “And it’s not allowing Terrano to take that test?”

  “Again, conjecture on our part.”

  “He went with the rest of the cohort.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he was part of them; they were a unit.”

  “They were not an indivisible unit. Their tests, at least according to Teela, were separate; they occurred in parallel, but they occurred—are perhaps still occurring—in different pocket spaces, not unlike Helen’s apartments. The cohort couldn’t see—individually—what their comrades faced. They could see it because they are name-bound to each other. But Terrano is not.”

  “Can you hear him?”

  “No. Not as you hear him now.”

  “Can Spike?”

  The pause before the answer was longer; Spike was answering, but not in Elantran, or anything that Kaylin could hear as a language. “Yes.”

  Kaylin exhaled. “He’s important to the cohort. He’s important to Teela. Can we find him?”

  “We? No.”

  Fine. “Can I find him?”

  “Yes, I believe you can. Spike does not consider this wise. Terrano is demonstrably not dead.”

  “Is he unharmed?”

  “We have no way of knowing that for certain.”

  “Lord Kaylin,” the Consort said. “I can hear only half of your conversation. I desire to know the content of the rest of it.”

  Kaylin explained in Elantran.

  “How important do you consider Terrano?”

  “Very.”

  Evarrim did not agree. Nightshade, however, did. No one bothered to ask Teela.

  “Very well. You found Calarnenne.” And her cheek was still blistered and raw from that effort. “You cannot find Terrano in the same fashion. He is not bound to you.”

  Teela was tensing; her eyes flashed in almost the same way the sword’s blade did, which would have been fine except it really didn’t look like a reflection.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Do you believe you can find him, regardless?”

  Kaylin took some time to answer, because the intelligent, thoughtful answer was no. “Yes.”

  “You do not have confidence.”

  “It’s impossible to have confidence in a space like this. If what Spike is saying is true, the Tower is like Helen or the Hallionne. At one point in time, it might have been stronger than either. If Helen wanted to hide something from me, she could.”

  “Very well. Find him, if you can. If you cannot find him quickly, we must leave his retrieval for a later time.” To Teela, she said, “I give you my word that should we all survive this, and should Terrano be imprisoned in a way that Lord Kaylin cannot perceive, we will return and we will free him.”

  Teela said something in High Barrani that Kaylin did not understand.

  Edelonne was shocked. Ynpharion was outraged.

  The Consort was neither. She lifted a hand, held it, palm out, toward Teela. Kaylin joined Edelonne and Ynpharion in shock and outrage as Teela drew the edge of Kariannos across the mound of the Consort’s palm. Blood followed in its wake. Teela did the same to her own palm—an action that barely registered to Kaylin—and then pressed that palm into the Consort’s. She spoke three words.

  Without turning to look at Kaylin, the Consort said, “Go, Lord Kaylin. Return when I call you.”

  * * *

  Go where? Kaylin thought. She was politic enough not to say this out loud—more for Teela’s sake than anyone else’s, including her own. There was a particular tinge of indigo to Teela’s eyes that spoke of fear—and almost nothing scared Teela.

  But fear of loss was something Kaylin understood intimately. She headed down the stairs, which happened to be where the breeze was coming from. Teela was right behind her. The Consort didn’t call her back, but a glance at the Barrani Hawk’s expression made clear that she’d probably fail to hear any command that didn’t take her where she wanted to go, at this point. Nightshade, however, remained with the Consort, as did Evarrim. And Severn.

  * * *

  Terrano’s voice became louder as they descended.

  “Can you hear him?” Kaylin asked Teela.

  “No.”

  “He’s getting louder to me. Look—I’m not certain that you can go wherever it is I’m going.”

  Teela grimaced. “I can. Not easily, and not without discomfort, but I can. Mandoran,” she added, “is practically screaming instructions. Sedarias isn’t happy about it.”

  “Terrano or Mandoran?”

  “Both. You’re certain it’s Terrano?”

  Kaylin nodded. “I wasn’t completely certain up above, but...it’s his voice.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “You really want me to repeat it?”

  This drew a grim chuckle from Teela. “Not where the Consort can hear it, no. I take it he’s not happy.”

  They stopped when Kaylin cursed in Leontine.

  “You can hear the rest of the trapped,” Teela said, voice flat, her tone making clear that she could.

  Kaylin nodded. “They’re loud. They’re as loud as T
errano, and I’m having a bit of trouble separating his voice from theirs.”

  “Is his voice getting any quieter?”

  Kaylin hesitated, and then shook her head.

  “Do you think he’s also among the trapped?”

  It was what she was suddenly afraid of. “He couldn’t be,” she finally said with a slight rise at the end of the short sentence to rob it of certainty. “If the Tower is trying to shunt him to the side so he can’t take the test, there’s no way he could be where the trapped are.”

  “It’s Terrano,” Teela said, as if that explained anything. She turned back up the stairs and Kaylin felt magic brush the skin that had only barely settled into its normal sensitivity. It was a small magic.

  The Consort bids me to inform you that you have her permission to continue; it appears that your current direction is where we must be, in the end.

  * * *

  Kaylin’s legs were cramped by the time they reached the end of the stairs—or at least the end of the stairs created by the Tower. The fire Evarrim had summoned still swirled around her, casting both shadows and light against the stone beneath her boots. The crackle of fire was its own voice, and the lap of flames, the touch of gentle, warm fingers.

  Hope continued to maintain his humanoid, winged form. She had an uneasy suspicion he wouldn’t remain that way; the stairs allowed him to move freely, and communicate freely. If he decided to go Dragon—as Kaylin referred to his large, aerial form—he wouldn’t fit. A hall opened up at the foot of the stairs. This hall should lead to the cavern in which the Adversary was imprisoned.

  The cavern could easily house Hope’s draconic form.

  I will not fight, Hope said. I will not fight unless you command it, and pay the price. What I can do, Chosen, you can achieve.

  I can’t fly, she pointed out. I can’t cover the distance between here and the West March in a handful of hours. I can’t—

  I did not carry you when I made that journey, and I did not take routes you could easily take. Or take at all. You are being pedantic. You understand what I mean.

  She did.

  I will protect you as I can. I will protect those within your sphere in a fashion similar to what they might individually achieve. Had Bellusdeo been prepared for the Arcane bomb, it would not have destroyed her.

  It would have destroyed me.

  No, Chosen. Regardless, if you wish me to face the creature trapped here by the will of the Tower, you will have to sacrifice something. It is not different, in the end, from the fight that enveloped the High Halls.

  Could you kill it?

  I am uncertain. I believe it is possible, but until I arrive at the foot of the Adversary, I cannot be sure. I feel it irrelevant, however.

  She wondered then what familiars actually were. She wondered what they had been in the distant past, and on other worlds that had purportedly been destroyed because their masters were idiots. She wondered if all familiars were like Hope, or if, conversely, Hope were like Helen: singular in existence, with serial masters. And more physical freedom.

  Hope had no opinion that he cared to offer, and as the seconds passed, she forgot the half-formed thought. She could, once again, hear Terrano. A spasm of guilt came and went, but so did the unconscious tension that had taken up residence in her jaw, her shoulders, her neck. It was almost impossible to listen to the wails of despair and pain when one could do nothing to help.

  It is why we are here, Ynpharion said without his usual condescension. It is why, in the end, we are all here.

  This wasn’t, strictly speaking, the truth; Sedarias was here to earn the title that would allow her to, oh, kill her brother and take over the family line. At this point, however, Kaylin was fine with it. She was certain that her brother had intended to either harm or kill Helen as the fastest way to kill all of her guests.

  And she didn’t like the emblem he’d put on the carriage his aide had driven up in, either. Mostly, she didn’t like the uneasy certainty that Sedarias was going to get her chance to kill her brother before she was officially a Lord of the Court—because Kaylin was certain he’d be here in person.

  Chapter 25

  The hall was long, and appeared to be unbroken by intersections or turns. Kaylin’s hope that Terrano was not where the Adversary was died by slow degrees; although Hope could protect her from the storm of wailing voices, the direction of that storm and the direction of Terrano were the same.

  She wanted to raise her own voice and shout, just to see if Terrano responded.

  Do not even think it, Ynpharion snapped. To be fair to Ynpharion, Nightshade wasn’t far behind.

  I understand that, she snapped back. It’s why I haven’t tried. If a ceremony of some sort was being convened here, it was being convened by the Barrani—those who had somehow become entwined with the Shadow and the Adversary. And while the Consort and her companions wanted to interrupt that ceremony—fiercely and with great prejudice—they wanted to do it on their own terms, with as little warning as possible.

  Nightshade moved up in the line, but left Teela and Kaylin at the front. Kaylin grimaced. She expected magic, but approaching it was never comfortable. And this very uncomfortable magic grew, just as the volume of Terrano’s voice did. She wished he would say something useful that she could understand; that he would give them some kind of hint, tell them what he was facing or what he needed rescue from.

  Or if he needed rescue at all.

  Teela slowed, and gestured for Kaylin to follow suit. She gestured with Kariannos, which couldn’t be ignored unless one wanted to be bisected. Kaylin would have slowed in any case; they had reached the end of the hall. Unlike many halls, this one didn’t end in a forbidding, warded door; the walls to either side simply stopped. Between one step and the next, the floor—worked, flawless stone—became uneven and worn; it was as if someone had taken a gigantic sword and simply sheared the hall in two, discarding part of it.

  “Is this what it normally looks like?” Kaylin said over her shoulder, her voice low.

  The Consort said, “There is no normal beyond these halls. But this is one of the ways it appears, yes.”

  “Was it like this the last time you came?”

  A beat of silence. Two. No, the Lord of the West March said. It was not. It was the first time he had chosen to join the crowd in Kaylin’s head.

  She told you this?

  I know her, he replied. This is not what she saw the last time she ventured into these halls.

  The last time she’d ventured into these halls had been just over two weeks ago. Kaylin hadn’t been there, though—she’d been in the West March. You think this is a response to the last visit.

  It should not have been, but yes. As do you.

  Edelonne, what are they doing?

  Silence. It was not the silence of struggle. Edelonne’s response was both visceral and wordless. I am not good with words, the newest member of Kaylin’s internal chorus said.

  I’m not, either.

  In your life, in the life you’ve chosen, skill with words is unnecessary. It was defining, for me.

  Kaylin had no idea what Edelonne’s life choices were. And this wasn’t the time to discover them. Do you understand what was being attempted?

  They are attempting to gain the power that the creature you call the Adversary has hoarded but cannot use himself.

  Who taught you how to do what you did?

  An image formed in response to the question. A man’s image. Kaylin had never seen him before. Brother? Father? Someone familial. Someone Edelonne valued. Ah. Someone dead. Had Kaylin’s arm hair not already been standing on end, it would have started immediately.

  That’s not your father, she said, far more sharply than she’d intended. It’s the Adversary.

  Edelonne resisted, but Kaylin had discovered one important thing about speaking through the bond of na
me—however that bond was built. Lying took effort. It took real work. She was certain Nightshade could manage it; certain Lirienne could. But she herself hadn’t mastered the art—

  You will never master that art.

  —and neither had Edelonne. She was new to this, newer than even Kaylin. She heard the truth in Kaylin’s words, and those words gouged into the heart of her certainty, cracking it, breaking it.

  Yes, Ynpharion said. I have never liked you.

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  But I have never doubted the truth or the strength of your beliefs and your commitments. I merely think those beliefs and commitments are foolish. She, too, will understand what I almost immediately understood. You are many things, many frustrating things—but you are honest. He made the word sound like an insult, right up there with naive.

  Kaylin could live with naive, although it annoyed her. Tell the Consort that it was the Adversary that taught them how to turn into this particular style of monster Feral. Not Terrano. Not An’Mellarionne. The Adversary.

  Edelonne, what else were you taught to do?

  Edelonne’s answer was wordless. It was Shadow; it was tendrils; it was a voice that Edelonne could no longer understand, although it was part of her memories. The experience hadn’t been expunged.

  Spike screeched. It was not a loud sound, but Kaylin thought it would make her ears bleed, and she covered one of them with her hand, the other being wrapped around a knife she didn’t want to drop, lose or jam into her cheek. Before she could speak, he detached himself from her shoulder, escaped the protection of fire that didn’t seem to affect him at all and pushed himself forward; he stood at the very edge of the hall. It was hard to tell what he was looking at, given his lack of obvious eyes.

  It wasn’t hard to tell that whatever he saw either enraged or terrified him.

  “Hope?”

  “There are more of your Ferals present ahead. The one who escaped you was not the last one standing.”

  “That’s not what’s upsetting Spike.”