The Chronicles of Elantra 6 - Cast in Chaos (22 page)

“Good, because that’s what it’s doing.”

When the rune touched the water, the water shivered and absorbed it, the way it might have absorbed dust. But where dust might muddy the waters, this single rune seemed to clear them entirely; the liquid in the lake now looked like water’s pristine, elemental ideal. The Arkon nodded; clearly this is what he expected.

“What do we need to do to activate it?” she asked him. “Because if we need to ask it questions in the Old Tongue, we’re not going to get much.”

“You would,” was the slightly grim reply, “be surprised. Let me attempt to access the Palace Records now.”

“But you said—”

“
If
you were paying attention to what I said and not what you incorrectly inferred—a trying habit of mortals and the young—you would know that what I said was it is difficult to
invoke.”

“Yes, Sanabalis.”

He turned slightly orange eyes on her while she tried to catch the mistake that had just fallen out of her mouth. On the ground some distance away, torch in hand, Sanabalis cringed. Tiamaris, on the other hand, turned to one side, and Kaylin had the distinct impression he was laughing.

The Arkon chose not to notice either of his colleagues; he fixed a steady and baleful glare on someone who wasn’t even his
student
—not that she was stupid enough to point this out. She apologized under her breath, and he snorted in the smoky, literal way of irritated Dragons everywhere. Because he was irritated, he didn’t bother to give her much warning when he started to speak again—and this time, he roared.

This time, however, the waters began to move and respond to his voice, images forming from the streaks of color that seeped from the edges of the rectangle toward its center in a widening spiral. She couldn’t understand what he said—and if learning Dragon was to be part of her etiquette class, she’d be so deaf she’d miss Marcus shouting in her ear—but the colors solidified into very, very familiar images: her own inner arms, writ huge.

The marks were their usual dark color. When the Arkon spoke again, images of her inner thighs and her back added themselves. “These are our most recent Records. I understand that you will possibly find this uncomfortable, Private, but I now require you to disrobe.”

Every word she wanted to say slammed smack against every desire she had ever had to keep her head attached to the rest of her body—but only because she’d entertained the suspicion that it would come to this on the long walk here. Pretending she was headed for the showers with Teela, she stripped off her gear and set it to one side of the platform. The room wasn’t cold, and the Arkon’s interest was so dry and intellectual it was like visiting a doctor.

Which, come to think, she avoided like the plague. The Arkon instructed her to turn, and then to turn again; he positioned her legs so he could examine them, his gaze flickering between the surface of the pool and the fact of flesh so rapidly Kaylin had to close her eyes in order to prevent dizziness. As he did, he spoke in his loud, bombastic mother tongue.

But she opened her eyes when Sanabalis called up from the ground. “Arkon?”

The Arkon nodded. “You may get dressed, now, Private.”

She did. Quickly. When she turned back to the Arkon, the images in the pool had shifted again, shrinking in size to accommodate new images. Kaylin, who had a vested interest in these particular images, was aware that any resentment she might feel over her brief lack of clothing was misplaced; at least the Arkon hadn’t insisted that the skin on which the marks resided be detached from the rest of her body.

“Private?” the Arkon said, in an uncharacteristically subdued tone. He spoke two very loud words, and the water shivered, images dispersed by small ripples. When those ripples regrouped, the only two that remained were once again huge: they were side-by-side images of the runes on her thighs. They weren’t, however, identical.

“That one,” she asked, in a voice that matched his, “was the last known image before today?”

He nodded. “You see it.”

She did. The marks on her lower leg had changed. She didn’t examine herself often—other than the usual brief perusal-and-cringe that constituted standing in front of a mirror—and she certainly didn’t examine the marks for minute changes of any kind. But it was clear, examining these, that the last two rows—such as they were—were dimmer and grayer than the rest; they had somehow faded.

“You think—”

“I think,” the Arkon said heavily, “that your brief encounter with your unknown pursuer in your nonworld caused the fading, yes.”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at his profile. “You think,” she said, flatly, “that if it weren’t for the marks, I’d be dead.”

He nodded, without shifting his gaze.

“Do you think it was the use of the magic?”

“No. I would ask if you believe that previous use of your magic has caused similar…discoloration…but it is my suspicion that your answer would only annoy me.”

She failed to annoy him, staring at the pale and shining water instead. The marks on her legs were basic black, except for one on the newer image, which was a softly glowing gold. Without thinking, she said, “Records, enlarge left gold mark.”

The mirror obligingly complied, and Kaylin examined it with care. “Arkon, this was the one that meant journey?”

But the Arkon didn’t immediately answer. She glanced at him; he was staring at her, his eyes slightly rounded. They weren’t orange, which was good; they were absent inner membrane, which could go either way. She started to ask what was wrong, and then realized it on her own.

She’d spoken to the water as if it were a run-of-the-mill Office mirror, and it had responded. “Should I shut up now?”

“In my opinion, you should speak perhaps ten percent of the time you actually do,” was his reply. He hesitated; she was, after all, accidentally experimenting with an ancient and clearly valuable part of his hoard. To her surprise, he finally said, “Continue. Continue, however, with caution.”

She glanced at Tiamaris and Sanabalis; Tiamaris was staring at the Arkon in open surprise. Sanabalis, however, had better control of his expression.

She nodded. Turning back to the mirror, in which the rune writ large was rotating in three dimensions, she said, “Records, access information—Devourer.”

“If this is your definition of caution, Private, it is a small wonder you have survived your handful of years.” The Arkon’s voice was dry as summer grass in a drought.

The rune was swallowed whole by a sudden vortex in the water’s center; as a transition, she preferred ripples. No image came to replace the rune; the water was dull and flat. Five minutes went by. Ten. Kaylin turned to the Arkon and shrugged. “I guess there are no on-Record stories. There are supposed to be religious—”

Her words were interrupted by a
roar
.

It wasn’t a Dragon roar, but it was familiar. Turning, she left the sentence dangling and looked at the altar mirror. In its center, she expected to see the hungering void that had almost terrified Tara.

She didn’t. She saw, instead, a man. He wasn’t human, to her eye; she thought he might be Barrani, although there was a subtle wrongness about the cast of his features; his bone structure seemed too heavy. Dragon? But he was slender, and his hair was both white and long; it fell well past his knees.

He spoke; his voice broke twice, lost to the roar in the background. She tried to see beyond him, to get a sense of where he was, but he existed entirely in isolation in the image. His eyes were ringed with dark circles; he looked exhausted. He faltered once, looking over his shoulder, his hair a spray at his back, the movement was so fast.

He turned back. He seemed to be looking at her; he was probably looking at whoever held the memory crystal that had so perfectly captured his image. “I will not make it,” he said. His voice was a rasp, and it was surprisingly deep. “Enkerrikas has gone ahead, leading what remains of our number. I am here, and I will face the Devourer.

“I will be lost in the void.” His eyes flashed like new copper catching sunlight on a damn clear day. He was afraid, and he took no trouble to hide it, because he was also determined. If he was immortal—and he must be, she thought, because those were
not
mortal eyes—all of the arrogance and general condescension immortals usually showed were absent.

“But I will hold him as I can. Escape, now. Send word. Our enemy is not dead, as we hoped, and the ways are now in peril.” He lifted both of his hands, palms out, toward her. It was neither a plea nor a rejection; she wasn’t certain what it meant. But years of watching the Barrani, the Aerians, and the Leontines had made clear that each race had different gestures for basic, simple things like
myself.
Or
Come here.

His eyes were now bright enough that the shadows that had dogged their undersides vanished. “…with luck—both good and ill—you have seen what occurred in Ankhagorran, and you know what waits if you do not escape.” His eyes flashed copper again, but he now seemed exhausted; he opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again, because the roaring was so loud only a shout—or a scream—could overwhelm it.

The water darkened all around him, light leaking out the edges until only he remained. His expression, shorn of voice or sound, was pale and grim; he looked young, to Kaylin, and frail. She reached out to touch him, but the platform meant her hand was several feet above the water’s surface, which, given the sound the Arkon made, was probably a damn good thing.

But she was still leaning toward the water, almost in free fall; gravity made her heavier and heavier as she leaned toward the pool’s center and the man’s eyes, as if drawn. And she was; she tried to pull back and it only sent her inches farther over the rail. “Arkon!” she shouted.

Or tried. What came out was so garbled it wasn’t a word at all, just a collection of random syllables similar to the “speech” of very, very young toddlers. The Arkon shouted her name; it made her teeth rattle. But she couldn’t turn and look at him; she couldn’t even move her face. The eyes of the man in the pool grew until they filled the whole of it, tear ducts the size of her head touched the smaller sides; brows that were almost white, they were so blond, nestling against the length. They existed, for a moment, in darkness; there was no skin, no bridge of nose, no cheekbones, no
context.

It would have been disturbing even without her sudden loss of control over her own movements. She heard the Arkon’s intake of breath, and every hair on her body stood on end, because that particular breath was familiar to her: it usually presaged fire. This time was no exception.

But the fire, in its entirety, was aimed
at
the mirror, and when it hit the surface of water, eyes were replaced by white, hissing clouds of vapor. Only then did she stumble—and she stumbled backward, and nearly fell off the damn ladder. Would have fallen, too—but the Arkon caught her wrist in one hand. A hand, she thought, given the grip, that might as well have been chiseled from stone. Granite, maybe.

“Because I am both curious and in a
tolerant
mood,” he said coldly, “I am not going to drop you.” He did, however, carry her down the ladder, which was awkward, given that he didn’t let go of her wrist. “Tiamaris. I am placing the Private under your care, for the moment.”

Tiamaris came—quickly—to the foot of the ladder. He glanced at the Arkon, who had climbed back up to the platform, and he winced. “Arkon?”

The Arkon said nothing.

“Has damage been done?”

“I am not certain. Previous experiments have indicated that the mirror is not fragile. Attempts to tamper with its functionality have proven futile in the past.”

Tiamaris said nothing. He did, however, grimace when Kaylin asked, “How many of those attempts included full Dragon breath?” He also shook her slightly by the arm as he led her back to where Sanabalis was standing.

“Well?” her only current teacher said, in a tone of voice that was suspiciously like a whisper. She’d never heard a Dragon whisper before, and would have been willing to bet it was impossible.

“I think I’ll wait on the Arkon,” she replied.

The Arkon did not feel that damage had been done to the altar. He was not, however, willing to let Kaylin experiment further. “And not,” he told her grimly, “for the sake of the mirror. I believe that falling into the water at that juncture would have injured you far more than the artifact.”

In theory, given that it was his hoard he was talking about, he should have been relieved. In practice, he was in a mood that was just a touch worse than the one he’d been in when he’d walked into Sanabalis’s rooms. “Arkon,” Sanabalis finally said, when they’d cleared the cramped halls and the cramped stairs and the cramped stacks and made it back to the place where the books, the desks, and the windows resided. “Neither Lord Tiamaris nor I could see what the mirror revealed.”

“Could you hear it?”

The two Dragon Lords exchanged a brief glance, which the Arkon interpreted as a no. “Interesting.”

Kaylin frowned. Mirrors could be keyed, which allowed only certain people to access them; Records could be keyed in the same way. It was more common to protect Records than individual mirrors, and one of these days, Kaylin would probably learn why. It was practical, so magical theory didn’t touch it. Security, on the other hand, talked about the effect of either form of protection, and the reasons why protection of sensitive material might be valuable or necessary. She’d done fairly well in that class, which was beside the point. Mirrors might not activate if the wrong people were
in
the room or in range of the mirror itself, but if they were active, they were active.

Since this particular mirror was set an annoying height above the actual ground, and was also horizontal, instead of the usual vertical that people had come to expect from a reflective surface, she hadn’t expected the Dragon Lords to see what it showed. She had, however, expected them to
hear
it, because it had been bloody loud.