Cast in Flame (17 page)

“Is Mandoran like this?”

“You’d have to ask him,” Teela replied. “Or rather, you’d have to observe him. He’s shouting a very loud no, at the moment. He’s also shouting at Annarion.” Her frown matched Kaylin’s as an indicator of concentration, and then her brows rose. “Whatever you’re doing, hold it right there.”

Kaylin froze instantly. Teela had used the tone of voice she sometimes used in a stakeout that could go pear-shaped between one breath and the next.

“Can you see him?” the Barrani Hawk demanded.

Kaylin could see the room—and her own breath, the room had grown so cold. “No.”

“He can see you more clearly.”

“Do I even look like me, to him? Can he see Severn?”

Teela frowned. “He can see Severn, but not distinctly; he says Severn is out of focus, and nothing he does makes sight of him clearer. He can see me—but I think that’s a function of my name. He can see the small creature on your shoulder.”

Squawk.

“Live with it,” Teela told him. Her eyes rounded and she turned to look at the small dragon. “But he doesn’t see what we’re seeing when we look at him.”

“Is he seeing something dangerous?”

The small dragon stuck his chest out, puffing up.

“He considers it unsafe, yes.” Teela muttered something in Leontine and reached out to touch the small dragon; the small dragon caught her finger in his jaws. His teeth glittered as they rested against her skin.

The air in the room shifted. The wall undulated. The temperature dropped—and given that Kaylin’s hands were going numb, she would have bet against that being a possibility. Something emerged in front of them. She heard Severn’s sharp intake of breath.

“Teela—is that Annarion?”

Teela, hand still attached to small jaw, nodded. Her expression wasn’t chilling in a room that was already too damned cold.

“Did he come here because you’re in danger?”

“I believe so. I find it insulting, and it’s clearly been long enough that he doesn’t remember how unwise it is to insult me.” She stepped forward, and the small dragon bit down. He didn’t break skin, but it was now clear he could. “Kitling.”

“He doesn’t listen to me,” Kaylin said in a rush. To the small dragon, she added, “Let go of her hand.” The small dragon squawked around a mouthful of Teela. “I don’t think he trusts you to stay within the sphere.”

Teela said something in Aerian, a fallback curse the Hawks seldom used. To the small dragon, she added, “I am not your responsibility. Kaylin is. Let go.”

The room beyond the sphere’s boundary began to shift. It fell away. Or rather, it melted, as if it were a watercolor hit by rain. Unlike the detritus of her previous home, this left no architectural bits, shed no flying splinters, no chunks of glass, wood or the occasional bit of stone. The disintegration of the room itself was eerily silent as colors that had once marked chest, wall, curtain and door ran into what remained of the floor. The floor, on the other hand, seemed made of solid stone; it didn’t absorb what were fast becoming puddles.

The colors began to seep into each other. For a moment, the resultant pool reminded Kaylin very much of the shadows that had attacked the fief of Tiamaris, seeping across the barriers that divided the fiefs from the darkness that lay at their heart. Kaylin took a step forward, because Teela did, and Teela was still attached by dragon mouth. Since Kaylin was at the center of the sphere, it followed.

The pool that had once been a room condensed as they watched. The strange, liquid surface caught the light Kaylin’s barrier emitted, reflecting it. As they continued to watch, that light was absorbed, and the blend of darker interior colors brightened. The melted blob lost the look of Shadow.

“Please,” Kaylin said, grimacing, “don’t tell me that that’s Annarion.”

“If he cared what mortals thought, he’d probably be offended,” Teela replied. She gave her hand a sharp tug, and the small dragon opened his jaw; to Kaylin’s surprise, Teela stumbled. Just how much force could jaws that small exert? He hadn’t bit
into
her. He had, on the other hand, added deeper runnels to Kaylin’s shoulders.

“Teela,” Severn said. “Don’t. Just watch and wait.”

It surprised them both; Severn wasn’t given to making commands. Surprise held Teela in place as the puddle on the floor began to rise. Kaylin wasn’t terribly surprised—although she was very disturbed—when the puddle developed eyes. Blue eyes.

* * *

Facial features followed as the puddle became a misshapen column; the eyes rose as the column did. A mouth formed beneath them, and a nose pulled itself out of what was now clearly otherworldly flesh. The patrician line of chin and cheekbones followed, as did ears to either side of the emerging face. Kaylin couldn’t help it; she winced.

Teela, notably, did not. She might have watched flesh form out of random chaos puddles every day. Her arms hung by her sides, ending in loose fists.

Annarion—and it was, finally, Annarion—staggered. He was naked. He was bald. The bald didn’t last; hair pushed itself out of the rounded dome of his head, like shoots of black grass; weight caused the hair to fall in a perfect drape around his shoulders. Clothing, however, didn’t follow. He staggered as if the whole of his physical weight had returned to him in a rush.

Kaylin moved, then. The sphere moved with her, the light harsher and less forgiving. Annarion’s blue eyes widened; his lips parted. But the sphere rolled over him and came to a stop only when Kaylin did.

And she did, because she was standing uncomfortably close to a naked male Barrani.

“What did you do with your clothing?” Teela asked. It was a remarkably mundane question, given the circumstances.

Annarion blinked rapidly. He then lifted his arms, turning his hands and flexing his fingers. He also flexed his toes. “Where is my brother?” His voice was hoarser or rougher than most Barrani voices.

“In the Castle.”

“What did he do to me?”

Kaylin snorted. “He did nothing to you. As far as I can tell, you—”

“Kitling.”

But Kaylin shook her head. “You understand that you’re staying in one of the Towers that surround
Ravellon,
right?”

Annarion nodded slowly.

“The Towers are like—and unlike—the Hallionne. The Hallionne stop
all
their guests from fighting or killing each other if the guests are in the Hallionne’s domain. Towers don’t care what so-called guests do to each other. They
do
get defensive when they think their Lord is under attack.”

“I did not attempt to kill my brother,” Annarion replied. His eyes had shifted into the darker spectrum of blue, and the fact that he was stark naked didn’t seem to affect his attitude at all.

“No, you probably didn’t. I don’t think Nightshade considered you a threat; the Castle clearly didn’t agree with his assessment.” She turned toward the door they’d entered; it was gone. The floor beneath her feet was stone—and it was familiar stone. “Teela, are we in the hall again?”

“Magic lessons, kitling,” Teela replied. She lifted a hand, and a harsh, sharp light flared from her palm. Kaylin closed her eyes, opened her mouth for a couple of Leontine words, and opened her eyes again.

We found him.

Yes.

Can you take control of the Castle, now?

The answer was longer in coming.
There is a difficulty.

Of course there was. All Kaylin had wanted out of the evening was to find a new place to live. A normal, slightly run-down apartment in a part of town that was relatively safe walking distance from work. Then again, all she’d wanted from the day job had been a normal, boring patrol through Elani, with the usual non-world-threatening irritations, Margot being chief among them. She should have known.

Can you control enough of the Castle that you can find Annarion some clothing?

The lack of clothing,
Nightshade replied, with genuine amusement,
is unlikely to cause him harm.

It’s illegal.

It is not illegal in Nightshade.

Does the difficulty have something to do with the ancestors?
she asked. The small dragon squawked, loudly, in her ear. Kaylin glared at him, and something beyond his lifted wings caught her attention: movement from down the hall.

“Teela—”

Teela’s magical light shifted in place. Instead of a broad glow, it now emitted a beam. She aimed it carefully down the hall. Standing in its center, between two stone walls that continued into darkness beyond it, was a figure.

CHAPTER NINE

In shape and form, he was a Barrani male. His skin was pale and flawless, his cheekbones high and pronounced; black, straight hair framed his face and fell past his shoulders toward the stone, blending with the robes he wore; at this distance, Kaylin thought them either black or a shade of blue that made no difference. He was of a height with Teela and Annarion.

Teela was tense. Annarion was as well, but at least his discomfort made sense: he was naked, and part of that naked included unarmed.

As the silent stranger continued to walk toward them, Kaylin frowned. There was something wrong with his eyes. They weren’t Barrani in anything but shape; they were dark and vaguely opalescent. They were Tara’s eyes.

I think I see part of your problem,
she said to Nightshade.

Ah.

I don’t suppose you’ve given the Castle a name?

I have. It is Nightshade.

Think of a better one,
she replied.
Or things are going to get really bloody confusing in the very near future.
To Teela she said, “It’s an Avatar.”

“You’re certain?”

“I’m willing to bet on it.”

“You’re willing to bet the sun won’t rise tomorrow; that’s hardly comforting.”

Annarion had, in theory, spent much of the evening in conversation with the Castle. It obviously hadn’t been particularly pleasant, given the set of his jaw and the color of his eyes. She started to tell him that the stranger was very much like the Avatars of the Hallionne, but stopped. The Barrani didn’t care for the Hallionne when they were awake.

And the Castle was now awake. Or at least sleepwalking.

She reached up and poked the small dragon on her shoulder. He squawked.

The stranger froze, his forehead creasing, his eyes narrowing. The change in expression was exaggerated; it almost seemed deliberate. Wilson and his various unnamed brothers had had a similar grasp of facial expressions.

It was the only thing about the Avatar of Castle Nightshade that reminded Kaylin in any way of the Hallionne’s brothers. Where Wilson had been unclear on the concept of physical form, his experimentation—if disturbing, as limbs weren’t meant to shift in length or texture—had been almost playful. Nothing about the Avatar that approached them now seemed to imply the same curiosity, wonder, and innocence.

Squawk.

The stranger stopped. Kaylin almost laughed out loud when the avatar responded in kind, his voice thin and grating.

On her shoulder, wings rose; claws tightened. Slender neck elongated as the small dragon lifted his head. Clearly what she heard from the Avatar—poor mimicry of small dragon—was not what he heard.

The Avatar took three long steps and stopped at the outer edge of the sphere centered on Kaylin. His eyes reflected the light shed by the marks that comprised it, narrowing further.

“Bearer of burdens,” he said. He spoke in Barrani—High Barrani. And he spoke to Kaylin.

She wasn’t certain how to address him in response. She’d become accustomed to the word Chosen—although she often wanted to reply
for what—
but bearer of burdens was a new one. She was spared the need to carry her part of this conversation.

“You are mortal?”

Some instinct caused hesitation, which allowed the small dragon to reply instead.

The stranger reached out to touch the edge of the sphere. His fingers sizzled. This was so not how Kaylin wanted to make a first impression.

“Do not,” Teela said, in a cold, flat voice, “even think of dropping your protections.”

Kaylin glanced at her. Her eyes were midnight. They didn’t reflect light the way the Avatar’s did. She glanced at Annarion— or his face, at any rate—and saw his eyes were the same color.

She looked, again, at the Avatar. In the brighter light of her sphere, he was almost white, but his lips were a darker blush of color. He looked Barrani, to Kaylin, but she couldn’t have confused him with any other Barrani she’d ever met.

Barrani really looked remarkably similar to one another; it was familiarity that made distinguishing the individuals possible—at least in Kaylin’s experience. She found their voices more distinct than many of their physical characteristics, but the being standing in front of her with slightly smoking fingers was an Avatar, and Avatar’s voices were unique.

The Avatar did not attempt to touch the sphere again. “You did not call me,” he said, and turned to Annarion. His eyes shifted as Kaylin watched; she had seen Tara’s eyes do the same thing. They became Barrani eyes in both color and composition.

“You did.”

Annarion’s eyes didn’t change at all; they were about as dark as they could get. The stranger looked around at the stone of the halls and frowned. Kaylin tensed as the walls began to recede; she had some fear that the floor would do the same. Nor was she wrong—but the shield itself seemed to ignore simple things like gravity—if gravity in a sentient building was ever simple.

She waited for the landscape to return in a different form—for trees to sprout or a different room to coalesce.

“You may have heard me,” Annarion said, in slow and stiff High Barrani, “but it was not my intent to disturb your sleep.”

“You did not disturb my sleep,” the Avatar replied. “My sleep was troubled. It is difficult to ignore the voices of those who should not be within my walls.”

“The only things that shouldn’t be within your walls,” Kaylin interjected, “are Shadows.”