The Chronicles of Elantra 6 - Cast in Chaos (21 page)

“I thought the reason this city existed in
this
place was because of the fiefs and the High Halls.”

“Yes. You did.”

Kaylin continued to follow in the Arkon’s steps, while trying to remember that, for the most part, she liked Dragons. They were straightforward when compared to the other Immortals she saw a lot of, namely the Barrani, and while they were undeniably arrogant, they didn’t make too much of a point of expecting you to confirm all the reasons why they had every right to be that way, in public.

But she stopped thinking about Dragons as the Arkon slowed, because if the torchlight didn’t touch walls, it did touch what he now approached. It was an altar.

Kaylin didn’t spend a lot of time in churches or cathedrals. For one, murders seldom happened in them, and for two, she had never quite decided which of the various gods it would be advantageous to worship. But she had seen her share of altars, and she had long since past the age where the phrase “stone table” came to mind.

This altar, however, was different from any other that she’d seen in one respect: it was huge. The flat of it was, at best guess, about twenty feet across. Sadly, it was also at least eight feet in height—or possibly more. There was no easy way, short of climbing a ladder, to get a good look at what lay on top of it. On the other hand, there were carvings on the sides of the base, and to no one’s surprise—or at least not Kaylin’s—they were familiar.

“This is the Old Tongue,” she said quietly.

“It is, indeed,” was the Arkon’s reply.

“Did you move this, or was it already here?”

“What do you think?”

“It was already here.”

He nodded. “I cannot think why you were considered such a poor student.”

Because none of the other teachers I had could threaten to turn me to cinders or eat me?
She said nothing when Sanabalis politely coughed. “No one tried to move it before the Flight arrived here?”

“It is possible it was tried. There was no clear evidence remaining, but you will note that the rock of the floor forms the shape of a basin only here.”

“Is this the reason the Palace is actually standing where it stands?”

“It is not the
only
reason, and before you ask, if you are unwise enough to do so, I am not at liberty to discuss more. I feel it is somewhat unwise to have you here at all, but the situation merits the lack of caution. You will, if you approach the altar, note the runes graved here.”

She nodded.

The Arkon lifted one hand. “We will stand back,” he told her. She stopped walking, and he frowned. “Perhaps my Barrani is insufficient to the task of instruction, Private Neya.
We
will stand back. You, however, will approach.”

“Can I take a torch?”

“Lord Tiamaris, give her your torch. At this point, there is very little that she can damage.”

Tiamaris complied. Kaylin, who hated most tests and utterly loathed impromptu ones, took the torch and obligingly approached the base of an altar that was clearly meant for giants. Well, small giants. “Did Dragons use this, do you think?” she asked the Arkon. “It’s about the right height for the form.”

“It is possible,” was the neutral response.

“You’re not certain?”

“Dragon form doesn’t lend itself to finer manipulation, and most ceremonies that involve altars require that ability.”

How much fine motor control did it take to dump a large carcass on an altar top? Kaylin didn’t ask. As she approached the altar’s side, she saw that the runes engraved there had begun to glow. This was not, in and of itself, all that surprising. What did surprise her was that specific runes began to
fade.
She stopped walking.

“Continue, Private. You are not, in fact, defacing the altar. The shift in the runes appears to be a function of the altar’s magic.”

She started to walk again, and as she did, the runes that remained—at least on the one side of the altar’s base she could easily see—began to glow brighter; light passed from faint to bright, and it was a golden light, unlike the blue that her marks often became. There was more than one rune; she thought there were five. They grew larger.

She began to walk around the sides of this pedestal; they weren’t as long, but they also contained golden runes: two. They were not the same as the ones on the front, if it was the front. She fumbled with her sleeves, while holding the torch; it took a long damn time.

“Private?”

“Just checking something.” She shoved the left sleeve up to her elbow. The marks on her arms, like the marks on the altar, were glowing—but not
all
of them. “Arkon?” she asked, arms still exposed.

He nodded and approached, and after a hesitation, so did the other two Dragon Lords, who had apparently been relegated to the category of inconsequential for the moment. Tiamaris took back his torch. The Arkon caught her wrist, and she allowed it—in part because his grip reminded her a lot of stone, and the effort to shake it off would probably cost her skin, to no notable effect. The Arkon’s presence didn’t seem to cause the runes on the altar’s side to change significantly, either.

“Does it normally do this?”

“A variant, yes,” was his quiet reply. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the marks on her arms. She, on the other hand, was now watching his eyes, because those were the weather vanes of the Dragons. This one indicated an upcoming storm.

“What do they say?” she finally asked.

“I am not completely certain. I would like to see your other arm. Tiamaris.” His voice was flat; he was talking to a lackey, now, not a colleague. “Get the ladder on the far wall—the one with the platform. Put it on the other side of the altar.”

Tiamaris, in spite of any change in status, did what any sane person would have done: he obeyed, first handing his torch to Sanabalis, who followed him. The ladder, from the sounds of raw scraping against the floor, was heavy, but Tiamaris returned with it, and she heard a different scraping as it was put into the desired position. “Arkon?”

“Don’t just stand there. Come here. I want your opinion on the marks on Private Neya’s arms. The glowing ones,” he added, in exactly the peremptory tone of voice Kaylin most hated in any of her teachers. Clearly, several centuries had enabled Tiamaris to handle it with grace.

But Tiamaris’s eyes were almost gold; the Arkon’s were now orange. The younger Dragon glanced at the older Dragon’s face before he spoke. “I don’t recognize them.”

“
Any
of them?”

“Not clearly. If you wish, we can repair to my Tower. The Lady may have more knowledge.”

“We are not likely to be able to repair to your Tower
with
the altar,” was the chilly reply. The Arkon was silent for a few beats before he added, “I would, however, like to visit the Avatar at a slightly more convenient time in the future. And I would also like you to take note of both the glowing marks on Private Neya’s arms, and the runes on the side of the altar. If it is at all possible, as we don’t have a convenient memory crystal, I would like to know what she thinks they mean.”

But Tiamaris inched the sleeve up Kaylin’s wrist, and frowned. “This one,” he said quietly, “I’ve seen before. And this.”

“It’s not on the altar—” Kaylin began, and then bit her tongue; she couldn’t see the whole damn thing. “What do you think it means?”

He smiled, and the smile was wholly Dragon. “This one? It is in the Old Tongue, of course, and the meaning may not be precise. Or rather,
our
meaning may not be precise. But it is the root of the Dragon word for Hoard.”

CHAPTER 12

“The root of the Dragon word?”

“Neither Barrani—in any flavor—nor Dragon appear to come from the Old Tongue in any linguistic way. Nor, for that matter, does Aerian or the Human tongue. We can trace the developments between High and Low Barrani precisely. We can trace the disparities between Human languages, with some effort. The Leontine language does not seem to diverge greatly with geography, but there are better reasons for that.”

“The Tha’alani—”

“The Tha’alani share some linguistic characteristics with Humans.” Tiamaris frowned. “The style of writing, here, looks in very superficial ways to be similar with formal, High Barrani—of the archaic variety, which you will not have studied in the Halls of Law.” Or outside of it, either, his tone suggested. “It is not, however. But some key concepts exist, and there is overlap.”

“So this isn’t the same as your theory of harmonic presentation?”

He raised a brow.

“Never mind.”

“There is no larger pattern in the presentation. The runes here are singular.” He frowned, and glanced at her arm again. “There might be some pattern to the marks on your skin, but the marks there are not subject to our revision.”

They had once been subject to revision, at a distance and with a dimly understood magic that involved human sacrifice. Kaylin failed to remind him.

The Arkon nodded. “That,” he said, pointing to one glowing mark, “and the third rune, are familiar.”

“What does the third rune mean?” she asked.

“Journey.”

“Travel?”

“No.”

“What about this rune?”

“That one, you’ve seen,” was his curt reply. He started to turn away. Dragons.

“Pretend I’m mortal, with the usual fallible human memory.”

He raised a dark brow, his expression indicating that this clearly wasn’t an acceptable excuse, even if it was a fact. “It is the rune for Truth, the truth of a thing, the whole of a thing. It is one of the first spoken words in the Genesis of the Leontines. I would speak it, but I am already weary. If you need a more active reminder, Lord Sanabalis, I’m certain, would be pleased to aid you. He will not, however,
do it here.

“Private, please join me at the ladder’s height.”

She glanced at the Arkon, hoping the ladder was as heavy as Tiamaris’s movements had made it sound, and walked around to the other side of the big stone block. The opposite side of the base was also adorned with runes: five. They didn’t look the same as the ones on the side facing the door, and she hoped that she wouldn’t end up either rolling up her pants or stripping her shirt off.

She forgot about that as she climbed, because as she did, she saw, at last, what lay across the surface of the altar. It was, or looked like, water. She understood, then, why the Arkon had been so concerned about the Tower.

“This is a mirror,” she said softly.

“It is.”

“Is it attached to Imperial Records?”

“With effort, yes, it can access them.”

Something about his reply was slightly wrong. “What do you access when you don’t put in effort?”

“That,” was his curt reply, “would be the question. What do you see when you look in it now?”

She stared at it. It seemed like faintly luminescent water. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“It looks like glowing water to me.”

He nodded. “You might wish to cover your ears,” he told her.

Grimacing, she did as bid, because he drew a loud, rattling breath—which would have been alarming had he been an ancient mortal—and began to speak in his native tongue. Covering her ears did not noticeably diminish the pain or the vibrations; even the surface of the water rippled at the force of his speech.

The water did ripple, yes. It didn’t change. It looked the same to Kaylin. “Do you see anything there?” she asked. The Arkon glared at her. But the water that lay across the surface of the altar—how, she didn’t know, because it didn’t seem to be lying
in
stone—was otherwise unresponsive.

“It appears,” he finally grudgingly said, “that the magical wards and protections currently in force in the inner sanctum of my Library are causing some interference.” He glanced at Sanabalis. The younger Dragon Lord shrugged.

“The Library is yours, Arkon. The risk is yours to take.”

The Arkon nodded, weighing his options. At last he said, “Lowering those wards and protections is not a risk I wish to take at this time. I will, however, try some of the less artificial invocations. Private, you may take your hands away from your ears now. I will not be speaking properly.”

The Arkon began to speak, and this time, Kaylin felt the hair on her neck rise. It wasn’t the usual prickling discomfort caused by magic. She recognized, in the richness of his voice and the breadth and depth of his syllables, each spoken with precision, focus and care, the language of the Old Ones.

She didn’t recognize the words he spoke—if he spoke more than one; she remembered Tara teaching her, by repetition and desperation, to repeat
one
rune that was over twenty syllables long. But…when Sanabalis had told his story, she had almost understood it. She started to say as much and then remembered the other thing that had happened.

She had seen the words, as he spoke them.

She saw the word that the Arkon spoke now, materializing in the air between them; it was, like the words on the altar’s side, a lambent, warm gold. It stood half the ancient Dragon’s height, from his waist to the peak of his head, and it floated as if it had no weight. “You’re speaking the Old Tongue,” she said, although it was obvious and Dragons hated that sort of thing.

“Indeed. The native enchantment upon the altar is ancient, and the words of invocation are therefore naturally in keeping with its creators. With some effort under normal conditions, the altar can be used in the regular fashion.”

Kaylin nodded, but most of her attention was caught and held by the floating sigil above her. When it began to move, she said, “Is it supposed to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Move.”

“We do not apprehend the words in the same way, Private, if you recall. I do not see the word as a concrete manifestation.”

She remembered. She’d had to
touch
them before they were visible to anyone else. “Do you want me to—”

“No. I would appreciate the chance to study your…interpretations…in more detail, but at a more appropriate time. The rune should descend into the water, in your paradigm of comprehension.”