Cast in Honor (The Chronicles of Elantra) (21 page)

“Don’t!” she shouted at the small dragon. “He’s not going to hurt us!”

Severn leaped down the stairs, using the wall to halt his momentum. He raised a hand and caught the familiar by a spindly leg. It screeched in his face. “Apologies,” Severn said to Gavin. “The Arcanum has been implicated in these murders. We require knowledge that the Arcanum has, without consulting or otherwise alerting an Arcanist. Gilbert is foreign; he is not from the Arcanum.” To the familiar, he said, “Gavin needs to mirror the Halls of Law.”

The familiar squawked loudly—and furiously.

Gilbert said, “Your companion is trying to tell you that it is not safe—in
any
way—to use the mirror in this building.”

Gavin frowned. He’d recovered his composure. Flying, tiny dragons and men with three eyes might have walked past him every morning before breakfast. “The mirror has been used—to no detriment—in the past.”

Gilbert closed all three of his eyes. He spoke to the familiar, and it spoke back. Neither were intelligible to Kaylin. Or to Gavin, given his expression.

“Harm has been caused. If you do not wish your magical communications to be completely compromised—” He stopped. “Kaylin, this mirroring—Mandoran attempted to explain it. How does it work?”

She punted the question to Severn.

“None of us are mages,” Severn said, “but my understanding is this: it is a magical net that is spread across the whole of Elantra. Mirrors are fixed locations that are attached to that net; a mirror can be designated in two ways. Geographically—to a building—or personally. Teela can be reached at any mirror that is attached and activated. Kaylin cannot. If you require a more technical explanation, you’ll need to speak to an Imperial mage.”

“Can this be done now?”

Kaylin blinked.

Gilbert’s eyes were open again. The two that were divided by his nose blinked the normal way; the one that rested in the center of his forehead didn’t. It didn’t blink at all. It did, however, move, although the movement was subtle. Gilbert spoke to the familiar. Kaylin decided then and there that she was going to learn the language Gilbert spoke. The familiar sounded too much like an enraged chicken; she couldn’t even pull syllables out of his squawking.

“My apologies,” Gilbert said to Gavin. “I did not mean to interrupt your progress.”

Gavin’s lips thinned. He looked pointedly at Kattea, the necessary “interpreter,” as Kaylin reddened. He then looked at the nascent mirror in his hand before shoving it back into its well-cushioned place in his satchel. “Neya.”

“Sir.”

“Just how big is this going to get?”

She knew she had to choose her words with care. Apparently she was not fast enough for the older Hawk.

“Private.”

“I don’t
know
. I’m sorry, Gavin—but I don’t know.”

“Bigger than the tidal wave?”

Silence.

“Bigger than the Devourer?”

“No—not that big.”

“So you do have some idea.” He ran a hand through his graying hair. “You understand there’s a chain of command?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s my butt in the fire if anything goes wrong here?”

“...Yes.”

He shook his head. “With your background, I would’ve expected you’d be better at lying.”

“Only when my life depends on it.”

“Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

* * *

Kattea’s excitement had faded considerably as they once again descended en masse. She clutched the back of Gilbert’s jacket so tightly her knuckles were white, and kept her eyes on her feet. Kaylin’s gaze was drawn to the markings on the wall: magical, all, and invisible to the naked eye if one wasn’t blessed—or cursed—with magical vision.

The familiar returned, disgruntled, to Kaylin’s shoulder. He didn’t lift his wing. He didn’t lift his head, either, but he did complain a lot.

Gilbert stopped walking and turned to the wall on which the detritus of previous spells had been splashed. Kaylin was not surprised when he reached out to touch the wall.

She was
very
surprised when his hand passed through it.

Kattea’s breath stopped. It resumed when she realized that Gavin, back toward them, hadn’t noticed. “This was a bad idea,” the girl whispered, presumably to Gilbert.

“Most of the work we do is,” Kaylin told her, just as quietly. “But someone’s got to do it.”

“But what
is
the work?”

“Right now? We’re trying to figure out what the Arcanum wanted with this particular building.” She hesitated. “You said the water brought you here.”

Kattea nodded, moving as Gilbert once again descended the curved, stone stairs, and stopping when he stopped.

“I think I can guess why.”

“Why?”

Kaylin exhaled. “Your Nightshade is not my Nightshade. I was born in the fief. I know it. I
hate
it. I ran across the bridge. But the bridge brought me here. It brought me to the Hawks. Your bridge doesn’t lead here. It doesn’t lead anywhere.”

Kattea nodded again.

“There must be a reason it doesn’t lead anywhere. And it’s here, somewhere.”

“You’re certain?” Severn asked.

“You aren’t?” she countered.

“Did you write these?” Gilbert asked, as if no other conversation had been taking place around him.

“They’re not exactly writing,” Kaylin began.

Gilbert once again slipped his hand through the wall, as if he were rearranging something.

Kaylin wanted to tell him that the marks he could see were the echoes of magic’s use. She refrained because she didn’t actually know what he was seeing. No two mages saw evidence of casting the same way. She suspected that even given that, Gilbert, with his third eye, was unique.

“According to the owner of the building, the subbasement is new.”

“It is not newly constructed,” Gilbert replied, stating the obvious without apparent condescension. “What was its purpose?” He hesitated, frowned and returned up the steps, dragging Kattea as if she were just a heavier part of his outerwear. His hands passed through the wall again and again, and as they did, Kaylin saw the runic symbols of forgotten or unknown mages realign. The colors, the blue that shaded to purple and from there to red, shifted as well, blending into a continuous glow of...gold.

“I’m not sure you should have done that,” Kattea told Gilbert.

Kaylin felt absolutely certain he shouldn’t have—because if Kattea could now clearly see the sigils, it meant that everyone could, including Gavin.

Gilbert was frowning. Kaylin’s frown was different. Where she had previously seen the distinct hand of multiple magicians, probably attempting to cast the same spell at different times, she now saw writing that looked almost familiar.

Lifting her left arm, she unbuttoned her sleeve and inspected the runes on her skin.
How big is this going to get?
The sigils left behind by strong magic had never reminded Kaylin of ancient words before. Gilbert’s rearrangement had altered that. She could see familiar bold lines, heavy curves, lighter strokes.

“Gilbert, what are you doing?”

“I am trying,” he said, “to understand the purpose of this alcove. I do not believe it was meant to be accessible to you and your kind.”

Gavin, predictably, stiffened at the phrase.

“Those aren’t—those
weren’t
—a message.”

He lifted one dark brow.

“Until you touched them, they weren’t visible to anyone.”

“They were visible to you.”

“Yes, because I can see magic.”

“These are magic?”

Gavin’s snort was not followed by words.

“A certain kind of magic. Not everyone can use magic. But when magic
is
used, the caster leaves evidence.”

“Evidence.”

“Yes. Magic is very individual. Even when mages cast the same spell, they don’t leave the same...magical trail. That trail is evidence that can help us to track down a mage if they commit a crime using magic. The wall contained traces of that evidence.” Which Gilbert had destroyed. “That’s not what it contains now.”

“No. But I believe your...mages...were attempting to invoke this phrase.”

“Pardon?”

“This is what they were attempting to say, in this place.”

Kaylin started to tell him that that wasn’t how magic worked. She stopped. What she knew about magic, in any practical sense, amounted to the lighting of one candle after months of useless attempts. And how had she achieved that?

By knowing the name of fire. A word. A word that defied easy pronunciation or comprehension; a word that dribbled through the figurative cupped palms of her concentration. “All of them?” she asked, instead.

He nodded. “They were not standing in the right place, but close.” He lowered his hands, the words on the wall reflected brightly in only his third eye. “This was not meant for you.”

“Was it meant for you?”

“No.” He bent slightly and retrieved the edge of his coat from Kattea’s hands. “I think you should wait upstairs.”

Kattea let his coat go, but folded her arms, looking the very definition of mutinous. And frightened. Only one of these held sway. “What are you going to do?”

“If we are very, very lucky, nothing.”

“And if we’re not?” she demanded, and Kaylin again felt a pang of recognition.

Gilbert, predictably, didn’t answer. He looked to Kaylin instead. “You said there were bodies.”

“Yes.”

“Mortal bodies.”

“Uncertain.”

Gavin said, “Mortal bodies,” with a side-eye at Kaylin.

“They are in a room?”

“Yes. The stairs lead to the only room in the subbasement.”

“No,” Gilbert said quietly, “they do not.” But he pulled his gaze away from the words he had arranged out of nothing on the wall and followed Gavin without further interruption.

* * *

The large room in the subbasement had not changed much. It was better lit than it had been on first visit. This didn’t bother Kaylin. The fact that the bodies were now in entirely different positions, however, did. Where they had once been laid out in a row, they were now laid out in a triangular position; their feet were touching, their heads pointing outward.

“When did Red examine them?” Kaylin asked.

“Two days ago. Corporal Danelle recommended they not be moved; Red concurred, after his examination.”

Kaylin turned to Gilbert and said, “These are the corpses.”

“They are not dead,” Gilbert said.

Gavin’s gaze attached itself to Gilbert’s face for one long, silent moment. To Kaylin, he said, “You should really report to the office if you want full details.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

“Red didn’t say they were alive. We’ve seen our share of corpses. But he was concerned.”

“Because?”

“They haven’t decomposed at all. Some very basic magical protections have been laid across the bodies to preserve them, but Red says they’re working
too
well. No pulse. No breath. They don’t bleed—he did check that. But he’s not comfortable.”

“What, does he think they’re undead?”

“He didn’t say. Before you make that face, stranger things have happened.”

“Yes—but with
Barrani
. You know, the ones that have to have True Names to animate them at all?”

“Red doesn’t care. He wasn’t willing to cut them up here. He did as thorough an examination as he could, given that, but that’s it. The Sergeant wouldn’t give leave to have the bodies moved; apparently the Dragon Court had a word or two to say about that.”

Kaylin had a few words to say, too. She kept them to herself and turned to Gilbert. Gilbert was staring at the three corpses. She wasn’t certain what a healthy skin color was supposed to be in a member of Gilbert’s race—but she was pretty certain that white-gray wasn’t it.

“They are not dead,” he said again. She walked to where the bodies were laid out and knelt. Or tried to kneel. Gilbert had grabbed her shoulder.

“I’ve touched them before,” she pointed out. Gilbert released her shoulder reluctantly, and she poked the small familiar. He sighed and lifted a translucent wing so that it covered half her face. She didn’t watch him do this; she was looking at the corpses.

They vanished.

She’d expected that, given her previous experience.

What she didn’t expect to see—inches beyond where the top of each man’s head was positioned—were three oddly luminescent, standing stones.

At first glance, they were uniform in size. She frowned and once again readjusted the familiar’s wing until it covered both of her eyes; he bit her hand in annoyance, but not hard enough to draw blood. The bodies were no longer visible.

With the exception of the lack of bodies and the presence of the stones, the room was the same. So, to Kaylin’s relief, were the people standing in it.

“Gilbert,” she said, as she cautiously approached the closest of these standing stones, “what do you see here?”

“I see three of your kind.” There was a moment’s pause and then he continued, “They are far, far clearer to me than anyone in this room, save Kattea. If I understand what Kattea has said about mortality, these men are not dead.”

Kaylin opened her mouth.

Gavin spoke first. “Red had some concerns. I told you: you want that information, you’ll need to mirror in for it, or talk to Red yourself.”

Thanks, Gavin
. Grimacing, she moved again. “Gilbert, can you see standing stones here?”

“Stones?”

Kaylin took that as a no.

“Private,” Gavin said sharply.

She glanced back at him while the familiar complained.

“What are you doing?”

“When I look through my familiar’s wing, I can see three stones; they’re in a triangular pattern. I’m examining them.”

“That’s not what he means,” Kattea said. She hesitated and then added, “What he means is, you—you’re kind of standing in that guy’s face.”

“On?”

“No.
In
.” She started to come out from behind Gilbert’s back, and Kaylin realized he was holding her in place. His third eye hadn’t closed, and she could see reflected light across the whole of its surface. “It’s kind of creepy.”

“This place—it is not stable,” he said. He turned to Kattea. “Kattea, return home.”