Cast In Fury (41 page)

She nodded.

“Wars were fought. Although to human eyes, they may not have seemed like battles. Many of my kin entered the shadowed lands, and few emerged. Some, you have seen. Those you call dead.

“Some you have never met, and if you are lucky, you never will. But I think most simply perished. Lord Tiamaris?”

Although Tiamaris did not move at all, he began to speak. “The Dragons went as well. They did not suffer the same fate as the Barrani, but many fell. And some returned changed. It was not felt, at first. The change was subtle.”

She stared at the side of his head, her brows folding as she thought. “The Outcaste.”

“Indeed. Kin to the Emperor, and birthed in the same fire. Yes, that is figurative, and no, I will not explain it now. If ever. He was a founding member of what has since become the Imperial Order of Mages. He was both wise and knowledgeable.”

“Like the Arkon.”

“As unlike the Arkon as two beings could be who could share the same race. The Arkon’s specialty is entirely knowledge; he had no interest in the Arcane. But it is interesting that you mention the Royal Librarian, for they were friends, inasmuch as that word has significance among our kin.

“The Outcaste dared the heart of the fiefs, and he returned to us. He brought knowledge, and artifacts, stories of vast buildings and empty spaces; of words in the ancient tongue which he could not read but could remember. In the end, the Arkon chose to accompany him when he went back. Understand that the city is not now what it was then,” he said. “And the Arkon was younger, although by our standards, still ancient. He traveled with the Outcaste and a handful of Lords, and he found some part of what had been spoken of.

“But he saw more in the words, and understood the significance of what he had seen. He will not speak of it so do not ask him.”

Kaylin, who considered it a minor miracle that she’d survived meeting the Arkon once, nodded.

“It is from this second foray into the heart of the Shadows that we understood the subtlety of the Outcaste’s treachery. We were ill prepared for it,” he added. “And we did not have the mastery of ancient lore that he had. The Arkon waited until they had left the fiefs—which is not what we called them, then—and he confronted the Outcaste.”

“With what, exactly?”

“Knowledge. Words.”

“What’s in there, Tiamaris?”

“Power,” the Dragon Lord replied quietly. “Lord Nightshade?”

“It is rumored,” Lord Nightshade said, picking up smoothly where Tiamaris left off, “that the confrontation between the Emperor and his closest kin almost destroyed the Dragon Court. It almost destroyed the Emperor. And during that time, the Barrani Lords chose to press claims, seeing weakness. It was to be a costly weakness.

“But when the wars were done, even before the wars were finished, this became the heart of the Empire. This place,” he said. “By this time, we understood what it might presage.

“Some of my kin, as I have said, ventured here. Some were lost. Some…remained.”

“The fieflords,” she whispered.

“Even so. It was a surprise to us.”

“That they would become fieflords?”

“Ah, no. That they would, or could? No. But that
humans
could? It surprised us all, I think—Barrani and Dragon alike. Some were called to the fiefs, and some fled to them. It doesn’t matter, in the end—these lands, you must fight to hold, and the fight is not simply a matter of arms. The fiefs are yours, or your successor’s. They do not exist without a Lord.”

“But Nightshade—”

“Was ruled before my arrival. You have seen the servants who guard the doors of the Long Hall.”

She swallowed, and nodded, remembering how very like statues they had been until they had scented blood.

“Here, the land and the Lord are almost one. It is ancient, this binding, and it is twisted. But it holds. No one has been called to the heart of the fiefs. Or if they have, they have not survived it.”

“But…if you know all this…why were the Wolves sent?”

“The fiefs as you know them now are not what they once were,” Nightshade replied. “And in any case, I cannot speak for the Emperor, and I cannot speak to his motives.”

“Severn, did you know this?”

“No,” he said quietly. It was the wrong kind of quiet. She wondered who had died here. Who had been lost. What they had meant to him.

“The fiefs cannot be shaped to our will,” Nightshade told her. “It is not as simple as that. But where there is life, there is a solidity that defies the darkness, that erodes it. We make of what is here something mean and mundane, and by slow degree, the boundaries across the river become simple geography. People live here. They are born here, they die here. They need light and food and shelter. They require the boundaries that will give them the hope of those things. But nothing has changed or taken what lies fallow in the heart. We called it
Ravellon,
once.”

“Why?”

“It is not important. What is, and believe that it is, Kaylin, is what it is called
now.
”

“Because the fiefs take the names of their Lords.”

“Yes.”

She swallowed. “But why the Leontines?”

“Pardon?”

“Why are the Leontines significant?”

“They were changed,” he replied. “At the whim of beings for whom the entire world was like Castle Nightshade. They were living vessels. Some few are born now who retain that ability. Think of them as if they were part of my Castle—malleable, subject to the whim of power and will. But living, cunning.

“They have been called before,” he added, “in story and legend both. And they make Ferals look like starving kittens. If the Outcaste Dragon has summoned them here, he is ready.”

“For what?”

“That, we cannot say. Only the Dragons can.” His tone of voice clearly implied that it was not a question that would ever be answered by anyone who didn’t want to be lunch afterward. “But we can surmise.”

“You think he wants to take the—the last fief.”

“I think it likely. It was our concern that he had, in fact, done just that.”

“And now?”

“I think Lord Tiamaris would know. I am not entirely confident of that,” he added quietly. “Nor is Lord Tiamaris.”

“And what would the Outcaste be then?”

“God,” Nightshade replied.

She turned back to the road. She had run out of things to say, and the rest of her remaining questions weren’t ones she wanted answers to.

The shape of a road. The broken stones. The slanted slats and open patches on roofs distant enough to be visible. Unoccupied; no glimpse of faces, no sign of movement. She frowned. A breeze blew across her cheeks, shunting strands of her hair to either side of her face. It was cool. Night cool. A reminder of winter in the fiefs. Of starvation. Of hunger.

She saw the sun above the street, but its heat was distant now. Leaning slightly into the unpleasant breeze, she lifted a hand and touched the Hawk on her surcoat. It was a symbol of flight and freedom—but conversely, it was an anchor.

It belonged, in its entirety, to Kaylin Neya.

She took a breath and closed her eyes. The feel of the breeze was stronger, and the mundane sight of the street no longer distracted—or frustrated—her. Instead of looking, she listened.

She couldn’t have said, at first, what she was listening to. She started by listening for voices, for some sense of communication or contact, but there were no voices on the breeze. Not at first. There was the sound of dry weeds brushing up against each other; the sound of pebbles too small to have ever been rocks; the sound of…movement. Not steps against stone—but something that suggested motion.

It was the sound snakes would make, coiling against rock, if they could be heard.

She listened more intently. The Barrani had fallen silent at her back; she could make out the faint sound of breathing, the slight clinks of armor that betrayed motion, no more.

But in the distance, she heard those movements echo, gain texture and resonance. Slowly, so slowly she was hardly aware of it, the muted susurrus of whispering voices, overlapped and indistinct, could be heard.

They spoke no language she recognized.

But they spoke a language she thought she
should
recognize. Her eyes still closed, she lifted her head. “Lord Tiamaris,” she said softly. “Could the Outcaste speak the ancient tongue?”

“Ancient tongue?”

“The language of the Old Ones. Sanabalis can,” she added.

“No. Not when he left us. Why do you ask?” The question was much sharper than the answer had been.

“Because someone is speaking it now. Possibly more than one voice. It’s not distinct enough for me to tell.”

Lord Tiamaris touched her shoulder, and she opened her eyes. Opened them and almost closed them again, because what she now saw made no sense.

But wasn’t that what she was supposed to see?

The road of fief continued forward, but in a gray that was leached of color. The dust brown dirt of road, the yellow green of weeds, all shades that she was familiar with—they were gone. And the buildings themselves, which had looked so solid—for decrepit, empty hovels—now seemed almost translucent, like the ghosts of the homes they had once been.

And the gray was not light or pale, but dark, night gray.

Tiamaris caught her chin between two of his fingers and turned her face, gently, toward him. “I cannot hear as clearly as you hear, but…the words are not a good sign. Lord Nightshade, with your leave.”

“You are not beholden to me, Lord Tiamaris. I am well aware that only one Lord commands your obedience.”

“A habit. You have offered both hospitality and aid, and I would not overstep myself.”

Lord Nightshade nodded. “You have little time, I think.”

“I concur. Kaylin, stand over there.”

“Over there? Why?”

“I don’t want to crush you.”

She started to ask him what he meant, shut her mouth and moved.

For the third time in her life, she saw a Dragon unfold.

He was red-bronze, this time, although that might have been the effect of the setting sun. His wings unfurled from his back, and shot up and out like elegant eruptions. His hands became clawed, scaled, and much, much larger. She watched in silence as his tail grew back, and his jaws grew larger, widening and lengthening.

The Barrani were still, but they were clearly uneasy; only Nightshade seemed unmoved. Then again, only Nightshade was armed with a Dragonkiller.

Tiamaris grew in height as well as length, and the shadow he cast was long and menacing.

And wrong. It was entirely wrong. The sun should have cast it in a different direction—

She opened her mouth to shout a warning, but Severn’s voice was there before hers, his cry distinct.

“Tiamaris!”

The Dragon’s head swiveled.

And across the boundaries of Nightshade, dark to his brightness, almost a mirror of his shape, a second Dragon emerged from the shadows and the ghostly buildings. He was solid, and he was not alone.

“You are late, hatchling,” the Outcaste said.

The Barrani were in motion; she could hear their metallic steps, their utter lack of words. Tiamaris drew back, lifting a neck almost as long as he was—in his human form—tall. But the Dragon that faced him merely waited, and after a moment it became apparent why. To either side of his jet scales, which glimmered with a light that was cast by neither sun nor moon, forms appeared, coming, as he had come, from the mists of the illusory street. They were dark, as he was dark, but the light that played off his scales—the light that seemed to come from beneath their surface—did not grace them.

They were as tall as Nightshade’s Barrani, and their armor was both darker and more stylized, tines rising from the bridge of their masked faces, small thorns adorning their mailed hands, their mailed shoulders. They wore helms, of course, and those helms hid everything from vision. But they were, like the streets, shades of gray, leached of color.

And they waited.

“You haven’t the strength to cross this border,” Tiamaris said. Kaylin was surprised that she recognized his voice; it was heavier and fuller, but somehow…somehow still his own. “You were badly injured in your flight.” He stressed the last syllable.

Dragon faces didn’t take well to human expressions. It should have been hard to gauge his reaction to the comment, because he didn’t reply. But his eyes were bloodred, the color livid in the ebony of his massive head.

She took a step back and then held her ground. Her movement, however, drew his attention. The inner membranes of his eyes fell—she would have bet they had already fallen, given the color of those eyes. She was wrong. The eyes were the essence of blood and fire, and she could see how small her reflection in their surface was.

He drew himself up to his full height. “Have you not come to stop me?” he said, sibilance trailing the single
s
in the sentence. “Will you cower behind an Outcaste Barrani Lord?”

“He carries
Meliannos,
” Tiamaris replied evenly.

The Dragon turned, for the first time, to look at the fieflord. Nighshade, arms by his side, offered a curt nod, no more. “Impossible.”

“Can you not hear its cry?” Tiamaris asked. “Even now, it demands to lose its sheath and join battle. But he wields it. It does not wield him.”

“It is not the greatest of the three,” the Outcaste replied. “And I have faced the greatest and survived. I do not fear it.”

“Then come. We are waiting,” Tiamaris replied.

The Outcaste did not move.

The armored men were likewise still.

But Kaylin felt—for just a moment—that the ground had been pulled out from beneath her feet, leaving nothing but a long fall in its wake. She cried out, stumbling, and Severn was at her side in an instant. He caught the hand she held out, and as he did, the world returned cobbled stones and dirt to the underside of her boots. “Be careful—he’s—he’s—”

Nightshade gestured, no more, and she fell silent, in part because she had
no idea
what the Outcaste was doing.

But when the world had stopped spinning and she could stand on her own feet again, she looked. The buildings were slowly, slowly unraveling, as if they were made of dust motes or dandelion seeds, and the wind was blowing them away. And as they went, these particles, these shadows, she saw that the wind swept them into whirling patterns just beyond the reach of the Dragon’s tail. They danced in air, lighter gray than the ground or the men who occupied it, and as they did, Kaylin recognized the strokes and dots, the crossed bars, the swirls, of written language. They were there for only a second, no more, but they left the same impression that staring at the sun will—the glare, the after-burn.