The Chronicles of Elantra 6 - Cast in Chaos (56 page)

Since
ruckus
had been the word Kaylin had been thinking, she was grateful for the interruption.

“They were a song, each one. I was not aware of them at first, but I learned to listen. I listened to the voices that spoke to the parts of me. The dreaming parts,” he added softly. “The elements. They were wild. They were like—your Everly’s paints. I did not know what they would create. I did not know what I would make of them.

“Or what they would make of me, in the end. This
I,
it is cumbersome. You are not a song. You are a single note.”

Kaylin nodded.

“When they tore themselves from me, I was—” He searched for a word, and gave up, surrendering the thought to the inadequacy of the language.

“Upset?”

The total inadequacy of the language.

“I had no words. I had no voice. There was an emptiness in me. I could touch nothing, feel nothing. But I could hear—at a distance—the sound of notes, the distant cry of words. They were mine, and yet not of me, and I attempted to alter this. I attempted to return them to what they had once been.” He fell silent, and then bowed his head. “I did not hear their voices,” he said softly. “I hear yours only because of what you have given me, and it will not sustain me.”

Turning to the elements, he said, “I made worlds so that your creations might live, as you did, but in lands that would not devour their music and their song.”

The water bowed, and then began to twist, coalescing, in watery form, into a familiar figure: a young girl. She faced the man Kaylin deliberately thought of as Maker, ceding shape and form to the one he had chosen to take.

“We destroyed many,” she said. “And many of our creations perished at our hands.” She spoke smoothly and without obvious regret; the effect was chilling. “We did not realize that there would be no new worlds, and no new words of our own, in your absence, nor did we realize that we—none of us—would have a home.

“We did not realize what we were,” she added. “And what we are now…has changed. When we understood…we asked that they somehow summon you back. We were not yet imprisoned here, but we had become weary of death and destruction and silence.”

“You…asked…that I be allowed to return?”

She met his gaze, night sky to water, and she nodded. “In the manner of mortal speech, yes, if you will not hear it any other way. It is, as you’ve observed, very limiting, and it allows for interpretation, sometimes not to the favor or benefit of either party. Anger and pain transform human words in a way that they cannot transform ours.”

He was silent for a long moment. He’d learned hope, Kaylin thought, and had learned, as well, that hope could be painful. “They refused you?”

“They could not do what we asked, not then. They understood.” She glanced at Kaylin. “They understood, and if we shaped them, they shaped their own in turn, and they attempted the creation of new words.”

He looked stricken, then. “New words,” he whispered. “Words I have never heard.”

She nodded. “There was no way to move between the planes of your creation, not for us. We were…aware…that they existed, that there were worlds beyond us. Our children created ways to reach those worlds. They made…” She frowned. “Travelers. But their creations were not stable, not predictable, and some who traveled did not return.

“Some who traveled found death. Some found their distant kin. They did not understand what we had beseeched them to search for, and even had they, I do not know if they could have done what we asked. They did not continue to try. We had become too great a danger. The travelers discontinued their search and their studies, and they waged war against us. It grieved them,” she added. “And many were destroyed.

“In the end, they made this place. It was difficult, for it was said to touch all worlds—and none—simultaneously. They confined us here. They appointed a guardian. And thus, we have remained.”

“But…you are changed,” the Devourer said. “And you speak this mortal tongue.”

“We do. Even the first of guardians did, long ago—not the same words, but of a similar weight and quiet. Small parts of our consciousness have been called into the external worlds, and we go. We do not often fight it. We fight,” she added, “on occasion, and depending on whim.” She lifted a translucent arm and pointed, not to him, but to Kaylin.

“If you rip out her heart, both her heart and the rest of her will die. We cannot die, but otherwise, it is the same. We were proud and wild, and if we are proud now, it is an echo of our former pride, as the words we speak are an echo of true words. This garden was built, in the end, to contain not four, but five, for our creations knew mercy, of a type. We have waited. We have waited without hope until the Chosen.”

“Chosen?”

She nodded. “We did not craft her. We could not. But those that came after, and those that followed them, knew words in a way that even we did not. Their words were not our words, although you would recognize them in some fashion, and they were wild in a way that even we were not. The whole of their long tale has not yet been told, and it grows in the telling, be coming both small detail and great arc as it unfolds.

“You have listened to her. She is new and her voice is small and complex, and her kind have arisen from the voices that we once woke, aeons ago. There is much, here, to learn, and we think—we four—that it is possible that were we one again, we might rebuild worlds as shelters and marvels.

“And we will never condemn you to silence again, if you will gift us with your presence.”

She didn’t speak of love. Kaylin could have, and she might have tried. But love seemed to be a word that was too small, or too foreign. She looked at the water’s face, and she saw, for a moment, the Tha’alaan, for the Tha’alaan was part of the Elemental Water—and it sustained the whole of a race.

The anger bled from her as she thought of the Tha’alaan, and of the lessons that one of the earliest members of that race had learned there. The water had not been silent, not just a container for thought and speech; it had had will, and it had had judgment, of a type, and it had learned wisdom and mercy through its continued contact with people.

That the water also encompassed anger and wrath, that it could be moved to create tidal waves that could destroy the whole of Elantra was
also
true. Because it wasn’t one thing, but many, and the many things were larger than she was in all ways.

“You care for the water,” the stranger said.

“I do. I care because it preserved the heart of the Tha’alani people. I hate what it did to you. But I’ve done things I also hate, and I can’t change those, either.”

“And you would trust it?”

Kaylin said, “I already do. But I’m not you, and I’m not an element. I only have to endure my life for decades, and it’s done.”

“There is no joy in your life?”

“There’s joy,” she said, after a long pause. “And hope. And failure. And fear. There’s even magic that I don’t hate.” She lifted her arms; the runes passed beneath his eyes. There were, now, fewer of them, although it wasn’t obvious at first glance; she’d have to check the marks against the ones that existed in Records to be certain which ones she’d sacrificed.

“If I stay, how will I be made part of this Garden?”

Kaylin would have glanced at Evanton, but all she had of him was his voice. “I don’t know. I don’t know if it hurts. I don’t know if you’ll lose anything. But…the hunger that drove you this far isn’t as strong where we’re standing.”

He nodded slowly, and she felt the twinge of that devouring hunger, no more. “Because they are here,” he said. “They are finally here. And you, little one, with your tiny, tiny voice—you are here, as well. You have given me words, a small story—but small, it is sharp, and I have heard it.” He turned to the water. “You are changed, and it has been so long since you were part of me, I am…afraid. Not of losing you again—although that fear is there.

“But of what it means, of what it will mean, when we are joined. What will you become? What will I become? I see in her…mind?…that you hold the thoughts and the memories and the dreams of a multitude. If I remain, will those voices be lost or destroyed?”

He’d destroyed whole worlds, silenced many more voices; his concern was almost surprising. He heard the thought, and lowered his head.
It was not my intent,
he said.
I did not realize that you existed at all. That hundreds such as you could exist in the confines of one complex word…

I created worlds so that the voices I could hear would have a chance to flourish.
He raised his head.
I mispeak. Your tongue—it is subtle and it is easy to say what is not meant. We,
he continued, lifting his chin, and throwing one arm wide to encompass the contents of the Garden,
created worlds. If I was their sleep and their peace, they were my dreams and my thoughts.

I did not want to be alone.

“And now?”

He turned to the water, who waited.

“I do not, now, want to be alone.” He lifted an arm, a hand, toward the water’s Avatar, and she looked at it; when her arm rose it was visibly trembling. “And if, in my wandering, I destroyed worlds—and dreams—I am willing to live in your cage until I better understand this new order.

“It was not my intent,” he repeated, his voice softer. “And perhaps I can, as you have, learn to build in the wreckage of the things I have destroyed. I cannot remake them, not yet. And even if I could, those voices would still be lost to me.” He whispered the word
Keeper,
and Evanton suddenly appeared before him, looking about as comfortable as Kaylin would have, had she walked through Castle Nightshade’s portal.

He, however, recovered more quickly and more gracefully. He bowed to this shadow of Severn, this god who had borrowed Kaylin’s memory of the form.

“What must we do?”

Evanton straightened his shoulders, and his dusty robes fell like a mantle. “Eldest,” he said, bowing in turn, “this is the wild Garden. In it, you will hear the voices of fire, water, earth, and air. They are ancient voices, and they know and speak of much that was beyond the ken of even the most ancient of Keepers.

“Every Keeper who comes to the Garden to accept his investiture speaks with the elements, and every Keeper, since the first, has heard their lament. I will ask them to sing it now, so that you will understand.”

He looked at the water. “I think,” he said softly, “that I have already heard it.”

“No,” was the Keeper’s grave reply, “you haven’t. And it’s tradition.”

“Tradition?”

“Yes. A rite that is repeated at significant times. It marks change or renewal, here. If you would summon the others?”

The stranger nodded, and in an eyeblink, Ybelline, Sanabalis, and the Arkon stood arrayed before him. Neither the Arkon nor Sanabalis were in their human forms, so it made things dangerously crowded.

Evanton turned to them. “It is time,” he said gravely, “for you to leave.”

“I would hear this,” the Arkon replied.

“If you hear it,” Evanton countered, “I won’t need to look for an apprentice. You’ll be bound to the duty of this Garden for the rest of your natural life.” He paused and added, “It tends to wear on the immortal after a while.”

“It is a binding?”

“It is. And no, before you ask, I have no idea how it works. But you might, if you witnessed it. You wouldn’t be able to change it, however. It’s been tried.”

The Arkon looked as if he would say more; his jaw literally snapped on the Dragon version of a growl, which made rabid dogs sound friendly. He glanced at Sanabalis and then nodded, and the two began the slightly discomforting transformation from Dragon form to human form. Their robes had, of course, weathered the transformation the way cloth usually did; they ended up wearing the armored plating of scales, which made them look decidedly different. For some reason, Tiamaris in Dragon armor looked more natural.

“Very well. I ask your permission, Keeper, to visit. I am, as you are well aware, conversant with Hoard Law, and if you will grant me permission, I will cede a similar permission should you ever desire to visit the heart of my own domain.”

Evanton’s eyes widened. Then he bowed to the Arkon. “I am honored,” he said quietly.

Sanabalis said, “Far more than you know.”

“Lord Sanabalis.” The Arkon’s voice was chillier. “That will be enough.”

“He was one of your students?” Evanton asked.

“Indeed. In a different time, and when I was younger and perhaps more ambitious.”

“Ah, well. Students.”

“Indeed.”

Kaylin grimaced, and lifted a hand. The subtle sarcasm of this gesture was lost on both the Arkon and Evanton.

“Yes?” They said in unison.

“I’m not sure
I
can leave yet.”

But the stranger who still wore Severn’s face over eyes of endless night, turned to her. “You can,” he said. “I will not keep you here. I can
hear
you, now, wherever you might go. Go into your strange, fragile world, and hear its stories. When you sleep, I will listen to them. You find it difficult, now, but you are already concerned about…strangers?”

She grimaced. “I am. I don’t know how long we’ve been here—but they’re a small, desperate army, and they’re facing my friends. We need Ybelline there.”

His smile was entirely unlike Severn’s smile. “One day, I will make a world for you.”

“Thanks. But I like this one.”

He lifted a brow.

“I
mostly
like it.”

They gathered, and Evanton opened a door. They got wet on the way out.

CHAPTER 31

Grethan was in the front of the store, his hands and face pressed against the window beneath the arch of letters. He didn’t even hear them approach, but Kaylin, glancing past his stiff back, couldn’t blame him. How often did he get a chance to see Dragons—in Dragon form—in the streets of Elani?

Because there were three Dragons yards away from the window, shedding sunlight. Kaylin glanced, briefly, at the two non-Dragon Dragons that were standing a few feet behind her; they were bouncing a look between each other which she didn’t have time to interpret. She caught Ybelline’s hand and all but dragged her past Grethan to the door.