The Chronicles of Elantra 6 - Cast in Chaos (16 page)

She grimaced. “Sorry,” she said, slightly red-faced. “I didn’t see you there.” The Barrani guards of Nightshade had always worn real chain or even plate, unlike the more common mortal thugs, who often made do with cheap and dirty leather. Andellen however was not dressed as one of Nightshade’s guards. He wore a tabard that she’d never seen before, and he wore both a helm and a plate chest that looked as though they should have been in a display case. They were golden.

What kind of idiots tried to make armor out of gold? Probably no one. And if it was Barrani, it probably only looked that way. But then again, what kind of idiots tried to make armor that
looked
like gold?

“You were no doubt preoccupied,” was Andellen’s grave reply. He bowed. “Lord Kaylin.” When he rose, the gravity was heavier. “The High Lord bids me tell you, should I encounter you, that there is some difficulty occurring near the heart of the outer city.”

She almost laughed. Didn’t. “You were at Court?”

“I was. You might recall that the High Lord convened Court during the difficulty in the fief formerly known as Barren.”

“Well, yes, but that was weeks ago.”

He raised a brow. “I begin to understand why you were given permission to absent yourself. It was, indeed, a scant
few
weeks ago. And the session itself has not yet come to a close.”

“But—”

“Yes?”

“But…you’re here.”

He nodded, still grave. “You appear to be in a hurry. May I assume that the warning that was to be offered, should I encounter you in person, is no longer necessary?”

She nodded. “We’ve had days of it. I’ve spent several hours at the Oracles’ Hall, and I’m due back there this evening. I’ve also spent several hours walking through a literal rain of blood, among other things. Speaking of which…”

“Perhaps I will offer escort, if you are leaving the fief.”

“I am.”

He fell in beside her. His stride was not her stride, but he slowed his step in such a way that he didn’t outpace her. “The matter of Shadow storm was much discussed,” he continued, when she didn’t immediately begin to speak. “As was the matter of a Dragon fieflord.” His smile was slight, but wry. “Apparently, a Dragon fieflord is of more concern than either an undying Lord or an Outcaste one.”

“Did they discuss Illien at all?”

“Only briefly. Illien has not…returned to Court. As far as we are aware, what is left of Lord Illien still resides within the Tower of Tiamaris. Lord Tiamaris has not seen fit to make overtures of any kind to the High Halls, although the High Lord is aware that Lord Tiamaris is still considered a member of the Imperial Dragon Court.

“It is not, entirely, to the liking of the Barrani High Court.”

It wouldn’t be. Kaylin frowned and then took a right at Kiln road, and Andellen paused. “Lord Kaylin?”

She looked back. “What?”

“You are perhaps too preoccupied. The Ablayne is this way.”

She started to tell him she wasn’t heading toward the Ablayne and remembered—before she spoke—that the borders in the fief were unstable in unpredictable ways. It was faster, if nothing went wrong, to go the way she’d intended, but given the day? She decided she’d try wisdom, instead of haste.

The bridge that led across the Ablayne and into the fief that had been called Barren for most of Kaylin’s life wasn’t empty, and she thought better of wisdom when she saw the three wagons waiting on something at the bridge’s far end. It wasn’t a wide bridge, but she could squeak past the wagons by turning sideways and scraping bridge rails with her butt. Which was not how she wanted to spend the next fifteen minutes. On the other hand, walking through the water in her kit didn’t seem like a terrific option, either. She glanced at Andellen in his plate. It was Barrani plate, and probably wouldn’t notice an influx of Ablayne.

On the other hand, wearing the Hawk on this side of the bridge actually did serve a useful function; none of the milling and slightly annoyed merchants—or their guards—tried to elbow her over said rails and into the river when she had to push them, more or less politely, out of the way. Since no one who was actually breathing would attempt to elbow a Barrani in any gear over the rail, they made it across the bridge in only ten minutes.

The idea that a
wider
bridge was needed
into
the fiefs was as foreign as native Dragon, to Kaylin. But clearly she could still learn something new every damn day.

Andellen paused at the fiefside foot of the bridge. “These are?”

“Carpenter things,” she replied vaguely. “I think.”

He raised a brow. “I believe I am capable of recognizing some of the loads. What I meant was, what is the intended destination?”

“Gods know. Tiamaris planned on constructing a Dragon’s version of a ‘proper’ market somewhere in the fief.”

“Some rumor about the reorganization of the fief has, of course, reached Nightshade,” Andellen said, as he turned away from the bridge and toward Kaylin. “But I highly doubt that the mortals are donating these materials out of the goodness of their hearts.”

He spoke the last phrase in Elantran, and Kaylin laughed. The Barrani had no similar phrase, and even saying the words in Barrani would probably have completely slaughtered all of their meaning. She shrugged and turned, as well. “Who knows? I’m not a financial genius.” It wasn’t something she would have said, had Severn been in earshot; she was still stinging from the lecture about budgeting. “But he’s clearly getting it from somewhere.”

“And you don’t apparently disapprove.”

“Possibly because I don’t know where,” she said with a grimace. “But it’s not just the outsiders who are working. He’s got his own citizens working on the various projects, as well.” She hesitated again, and then added, “This fief lost a lot of people to the Shadows. It’s as secure as it’s going to get now, but whole buildings melted into something other than stone or ash nearer the interior border—with all the people
in
them. At least we’ve stopped finding corpses,” she added.

“‘We’?”

She shrugged. “This way.”

The Tower rose at the junction of the newly renamed Avatar Road and the equally newly renamed Garden Row. While Kaylin could understand Avatar—which had been Tiamaris’s choice—she privately thought the Dragon Lord should have overruled Garden Row. It might work in the outer city in certain districts, but in the fiefs it just felt wrong. Tiamaris had not, however, overruled the Lady, as she was called.

She and Morse had an ongoing bet about how long it would take for the Lady to ask for
anything
that he’d either deny or overrule. So far, there were no winners, but as Morse had bet Never, it wasn’t really something Kaylin could collect on, anyway.

Andellen, however, didn’t blink when Kaylin grudgingly acknowledged the names on the
very prominent
street signs erected so close to the Tower.

“I don’t know how much Nightshade—”

“Lord Nightshade.” He offered the correction while his gaze traveled up to the Tower’s impressive, pale—and faintly shiny—height, where a flag struggled against the wind.

“Lord Nightshade, then. How much did he tell you?”

“Very little. It may come as a surprise to you, Private Neya,” he added, in a perfectly serious tone, “but I seldom cross the bridges—or the walls—into other fiefs, nor do most occupants of other fiefs enter Nightshade. Information about Tiamaris would not, therefore, be useful. We will never be at war.”

“Well,” she said, as she turned up the walk, with its singular absence of surrounding fences, gates, or a gatehouse, “try not to step on the carrots or the tomatoes, and try not to bring up the subject of gardening. At all.”

“Carrots?” he said, and this time his brow did ripple in confusion.

“The Avatar thinks gardening and farming mean more or less the same thing. Or thinks they should.”

“The Avatar.”

“Yes. I call her Tara. But everyone else calls her the Lady. If Tiamaris gives you permission, and you take a look at what he’s been building around the fief, you’ll hear her name. A lot. They think she has eyes everywhere.”

He raised a brow.

“I didn’t say they were stupid.”

Andellen stepped on nothing, of course. Even though his feet were larger than Kaylin’s, he still managed to avoid the great, messy leaves that were already encroaching on the path to the blessedly normal doors—and he did it without breaking stride. Catching her expression, he smiled.

“I spent many years in the West March,” he said, as if that explained something. When the explanation had obviously failed to enlighten, he added, “There are groves in the interior of the West March that you do not so much as breathe on. Stepping on any part of any plant would generally be considered suicide.”

“To the Barrani?”

He nodded.

“I never want to see their trees.”

“It is my suspicion that you will not be overly fond of the insect life, either.” He stopped at the foot of the stairs that led to the double doors, both of which were closed. Kaylin glanced over her shoulder at the visible acres of garden; she was well aware that some portion of the garden was in the glasshouse, and some of it was out of line of sight. But the breeze seemed to be the only thing that was moving the plants at the moment. When Tara was at work in the garden itself, it was impossible to miss her.

Kaylin then strode over to the doors and knocked. Andellen joined her slowly as the doors rolled inward. Tara stood in their center, and she beamed; she was wearing dirty gardening gloves and a kerchief that didn’t look much cleaner. It kept her hair out of her face. She didn’t have to worry about sun, though; they’d discovered that nothing seemed to change her complexion.

“Kaylin!” She ran the two steps and enfolded Kaylin in a hug. Then, arms still wrapped around the Hawk, she glanced at Andellen. “Who’s this?”

“Lord Andellen,” Kaylin said, returning the hug briefly before she disentangled herself. “Lord Andellen, I’d like you to meet the Avatar of the Tower of Tiamaris.”

Andellen stared at Tara for a full minute longer than was comfortable—for Kaylin. Tara had a very odd notion of what was—or was not—polite, and Kaylin had learned to be grateful for it very quickly, as it saved Tiamaris from actually having to eat people or reduce them to ash. Stares did not discomfit her; nor did silences like this one, or their opposite—an endless stream of babble.

She was, in some ways, like a child: she viewed the whole outside world with wonder, and often had to be pulled away from the cracks in the cobbles where weeds grew, or the small birds that congregated wherever there was even the faintest possibility of crumbs. Kaylin wanted to be with her the first time she saw snow.

She stepped back from Kaylin, and then said, to Andellen, “You’re of Nightshade.”

He’d recovered himself enough to bow, and it wasn’t a shallow gesture. “I am, Lady,” he replied, as he straightened.

Her frown was slight, and she turned to the open doors as Morse stepped out into the sunlight. Morse was armed. Kaylin realized, with surprise, that it had been a while since she’d seen Morse holding daggers. “He’s with me,” she said quickly.

“You brought him
here?
”

“Well, technically, yes.”

“Why?”

“He’s a member of the High Court,” Kaylin replied. “And the High Court has some reservations about Tiamaris.”

“What kind of reservations?” Morse said, in exactly the wrong tone of voice.

“He’s a Dragon. They’ve got a complicated history.” Kaylin shrugged. “But for what it’s worth, I trust Andellen, and I trust Tiamaris, so I didn’t expect it would be a problem to have them meet.”

“It’ll be a problem today, unless you want to head back to the market.”

“He’s out?”

Morse nodded. “We were just about to head out, as well.”

“To the garden.”

“Oh—no.” Morse glanced at Tara’s clothing and cringed. “We’re due at the construction near the interior border. There are still some…difficulties there, and the Lady can always tell where they are, and how far we can safely go. She can also make it safer, so we don’t start without her. Why did you drop by?”

“I’m having a totally different problem,” Kaylin replied. “And I wanted to ask Tara a few questions about it. We can walk with you, if you’re late.” Tara’s sense of time, like Kaylin’s, was not precise. On the other hand, no one threatened to dock the Tower’s pay.

Tara turned to Kaylin. “What problem?” she asked, in her gravest of tones.

Kaylin hesitated, trying to choose her words with care—not so much for Tara’s sake, but for Morse’s. “I was on Elani street—and while I was visiting a friend, I kind of fell out of the world.”

Morse said, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

But Tara frowned, and her eyes darkened. Although she looked human, her eyes, like the eyes of many other Elantran races, shifted in color as her mood did. “You reached the edge of the world?”

“I don’t know where I reached—it looked like a whole lot of nothing. But I opened a familiar door, entered a—a very large room. When I tried to leave, the door didn’t open into the hallway anymore—it opened into…nothing.”

Tara turned to Morse. “I think,” she said quietly, “that we will be a little late today.” Turning, she waved toward the open doors as Morse muttered something inaudible under her breath. “Come, Kaylin. Lord Andellen?”

“If you permit it, Lady, I will accompany Lord Kaylin.”

Tara wrinkled her nose at the title.

“Don’t look at me,” Kaylin said with a grimace. “I don’t think it suits me, either, and
I
can’t get him to stop.”

Kaylin had spent very little time in the Tower of Tiamaris, not because she disliked it, but because Tiamaris himself spent so little time here. But she did recognize the front foyer, which was very different from that of Castle Nightshade. Some Barrani influences existed, but the Tower belonged to a Dragon now, and that showed. The doors, for one, were very wide, and they were always doubled; the floors were solid stone. In some places, carpets ran the length of the halls—but they didn’t run the length of the hall that Tara now opened, again with a wave of her hand.