Cast in Wisdom (Chronicles of Elantra #15) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,9
in which they reluctantly allowed mirror messages to both enter and leave their domain.
Tiamaris exhaled a thin stream of smoke, but said nothing. His eyes were orange, but orange was the standard Dragon color when discussing the fiefs.
“He’s not like Nightshade.”
“You’ve met him.”
“We have.” She nodded in Severn’s direction.
“It is my understanding that the mortal Hawks are not responsible for the warrens.”
“We had the cohort; Teela was off duty. And we had Bellusdeo.”
This did cause a shift in eye color, and not in the good direction.
“Have you ever tried to say no to her when she wants something the Emperor has specifically already said she can have?”
He grimaced, his eye color lightening. “What was Candallar doing in the warrens?”
“On hearsay, he was waiting to meet with a Barrani High Lord or two.”
“Would this meeting have occurred around the same time as the reconfiguration of the High Halls?”
“Yes. How much have you heard?”
“Not much. Tara was not concerned with the change in the building’s state. She considered it an unexpectedly good sign. If Candallar was involved—”
“Any good that came out of his involvement was accidental.” Kaylin then detailed what she could remember about Candallar, his Barrani connections, and Spike, a Shadow who’d worked with them to preserve the High Halls. Hope was dangling across both shoulders looking bored when Tara interrupted her.
“You are saying that the fieflord of Candallar allowed a Lord of the High Court to enter Ravellon through his domain?”
“Yes.”
“And that Lord then found Spike and carried him across the border?”
Kaylin nodded.
“And Spike remained in the High Halls.”
“I think he’d be willing to talk to us if we visited. He knows a lot about Ravellon. But he said...” She trailed off, uncertain of how to proceed. Tara was militant about Shadow in the same way Bellusdeo was—but there was less flexibility in Tara’s response because Tara’s purpose as a Tower was the defense against, and destruction of, Shadow.
“That is true.” The doors to the mirror room faded. Standing beside the rounded lip of the pool’s circumference was the Avatar of the Tower. She was not wearing gardening clothing; her robes were a long, loose drape of pale ivory and green. Her eyes, as she turned them toward her lord and his approaching guests, were obsidian.
“Bellusdeo was controlled by Shadow for—actually, I don’t know how long it was, objectively speaking. Maggaron was controlled in a similar fashion. They’re not controlled now. And Spike seemed happy not to be enslaved.”
“And you now believe that we could somehow free all of Shadow?” Tara’s tone did not encourage optimism.
“I just think—”
“You can barely survive one of the individual Shadows when it crosses the inner boundary,” Tiamaris cut in. “If what you believe is true—and I am willing to lend it credence—it is functionally irrelevant. To get to the enslaver, you would have to fight through the slaves—and the slaves are more dangerous than you could ever hope to be.”
“That is not entirely true,” Tara then said, her voice gentling. “She is Chosen.”
“You have never explained what that means, in a practical sense.”
“We do not fully understand it ourselves, my Lord.” She then looked at the still surface of clear water. Her eyes lost the look and texture of black stone as the water began to move. “But it is true that the Barrani—the High Court, the High Lords, and perhaps Candallar himself—don’t understand the Shadows, either.”
“They expected Spike to be of use. And he probably was, at least briefly. He’s like a portable memory crystal and portable Records rolled into one, but he...” Kaylin hesitated, trying to choose the right words, or any words at all, to describe what had occurred when the cohort had fled into the outlands.
Spike had not been small, portable or harmless there.
She didn’t need to find the right words in Tiamaris. Tara could see what she was attempting to squeeze into Elantran with so much difficulty. The mirror responded to Tara, and the image of that giant Spike—with a Kaylin-size Barrani, probably Sedarias, by his side—appeared.
“In the High Halls, as well?”
“In the Tower of testing, yes. He looked different in the Tower, but he was about the same size.”
“He is dangerous.”
“He didn’t—”
“He could meld with you so completely he could not be detected by the Tower of Candallar. And he could become this, as well. Doing so in the outlands is impressive, but it is not dangerous in the same fashion, for reasons I’m sure you understand.”
Kaylin didn’t.
Tara, gaze focused on Spike, continued. “Candallar’s Tower allowed the Lord