The chancellor was only barely of a mind to allow them the use of his conference room, and Kaylin was almost certain he did so only because Starrante requested it; had Kaylin been on her own, she was fairly certain Killian would have been asked to see her to the figurative door. Lannagaros’s expression was thunderous. It was still more friendly than Kavallac’s had been at the end.
Starrante waved his forearms at the chancellor. “If there are appointments granted to the older students for library privileges, I’m afraid they will have to be delayed.”
The chancellor froze, his eyes shading to a dark orange. “Why?”
“Young Kaylin asked Arbiter Androsse about a former student. Arbiter Androsse and Arbiter Kavallac...disagreed about that student, and they are engaged in a colorful—and very loud—argument at the moment. I am almost certain some of your Barrani students could weather that storm, but it is not a risk I would take. It is not her fault.”
“You do realize that I will have a handful of very argumentative and aggrieved students in my office if I cancel these privileges?”
“Yes. I consider the possible alternative outcome to be more regrettable.”
“Very well.” He turned his orange-eyed glare on Kaylin. The former Arkon was being as fair as he generally was. Kaylin wasn’t stupid enough to share this grumbling thought. “Serralyn, however, has classes. Valliant could stand in for her, but I am not of a mind to allow students to take unnecessary liberties with my personal space.”
Serralyn looked disappointed, but didn’t argue.
Which probably meant Terrano was once again invisibly nearby.
Larrantin came to the conference room an hour later. He was, as Barrani were wont to be, blue-eyed when he entered the room. “Someone has put the chancellor in a very bad mood.”
Kaylin winced.
“That would be Arbiter Androsse and Arbiter Kavallac,” Starrante said.
“Are they fighting again?”
“Some things don’t change,” Starrante replied.
“What set them off this time?”
“Ah. That would be Lord Kaylin.”
Larrantin frowned and turned to said lord, his brows folding as if he were attempting to understand how a mere mortal could have such effect; his eyes cleared as he whispered the word Chosen.
“No,” Kaylin said, slightly annoyed herself. “Imperial Hawk.”
“You cannot possibly accuse the Arbiters of petty crime.” In Larrantin’s view, all of the Halls of Law were clearly absorbed in the investigation of the petty.
“No. I came to ask Arbiter Starrante about the use of portals in regard to physical displacement—in this case the displacement or suspension of the entire Academia. Which doesn’t actually exist on maps because there’s no sane way it should.”
“I am uncertain that Starrante would have much information about that, although he is the expert on the use of portals. There is nothing in that question that should have provoked disagreement between the Arbiters.”
“No. But I asked about—I mentioned—the name of a former student.”
Clearly students were also considered petty in Larrantin’s view. This, Kaylin thought, is why she disliked the Barrani. “There are no students currently studying who could provoke that ire.”
“The student in question is not a current student, and I’ve been told that she is dead. Along with the rest of her line.”
“You asked about a student who existed before the Towers rose?”
“I had no idea she was that old—she was the owner of a building that doesn’t seem to be completely in phase with the rest of the city. Which...is like the Academia.”
“Name?”
It was Starrante who answered, although the answer was a series of clicks and whistles.
Clearly, Larrantin understood the Wevaran tongue; his eyes darkened from the usual blue to a much, much deeper color. Arrogance and boredom drained from his features as he turned all of his attention to Kaylin.
“Why did you think it necessary to ask about this person?” This person. Not Azoria.
“Because her name is listed as owner of record for a house that no longer exists. It doesn’t exist in any current map in Records—and in the Records to which I have access, it hasn’t existed for at least a century. If not for the taxation office, I would never have stumbled across the name at all.”
He held up one hand. “You will now go back to the beginning and you will explain.”
For the second time in as many hours, Kaylin detailed the travails of Mrs. Erickson, Mrs. Erickson’s two flavors of ghosts, and the house she could only see through Hope’s wing.
“I fail to see the purpose of this investigation. The strangeness you have encountered has nothing to do with our former student.”
Kaylin, however, shook her head. “That’s not the way this works. And I’m less and less certain she has nothing to do with what happened to the indoor ghosts.”
“They are not trapped in the nonexistent building; were they, you would not have encountered them.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Kaylin replied. “Fourteen doesn’t exist anymore. No one remembers it. But fourteen and a half didn’t exist prior to that century-old map, at least according to taxation Records. It exists now, and it existed eighty years ago, but eighty years is a long time for us; it’s just part of the street that’s always been there to people who live on that street.”
“You don’t believe it’s always existed,” Killian said.
“I know what I saw—there’s no way that that building became the other, much, much smaller house. And the house is small for the street—it looks slightly out of place. But if Azoria was somehow involved there might be a reason she chose to abandon the building she originally owned. If she was involved, it would be at least a century ago, which is when the children started to disappear. Which would imply that she wasn’t dead, as has been claimed.”
“I did not claim she was dead.”
“No, that wasn’t you. Given Androsse’s reaction—”
“Arbiter Androsse.” Larrantin’s eyes narrowed.
“—Arbiter Androsse. Sorry. Given the Arbiter’s reaction, I wouldn’t be surprised if I found out that she was still, somehow, alive. I mean, look at you. You stayed here when the Academia was, in theory, obliterated with the rise of the Towers, and you’re demonstrably not dead.”
“She has not been seen in the High Halls?”
“Probably not. I have an upcoming meeting in the High Halls, and I will certainly be bringing this up there.”
“You have a meeting in the High Halls?”
“I was invited to attend a meeting with the Lady, yes.”
“It is to be hoped, given your deplorable manners, that the meeting is a private one.”
“Mostly private. An’Teela has also been summoned.”
“Expect that your questions will not be greeted with any great joy,” Larrantin said. His eyes weren’t indigo yet, but it was close.
“Azoria was a student here before the Academia’s long hibernation. Was she a student of yours?”
Starrante chittered; Larrantin lifted a hand, palm out, in the Wevaran’s direction. “She was a student of mine, yes. But she was predominantly a student of the Arbiter Androsse.”
“The Arbiters take students?”
“No. That is why it was considered significant. I would guess that the conflict between the two Arbiters stems from his decision in the distant past.”
“Was she a good student?”
“She was an excellent student: very focused and very driven. She was, in Barrani terms, a woman of astonishing ambition.”
“Ambition to do what?” Kaylin tried to keep any accusation out of her voice; when Barrani were said to be ambitious it usually meant bad things for anyone who was not said Barrani.
“To learn, of course. To absorb any and all knowledge not already in her possession. She was an impressive talent, magically speaking; she was considered the only natural choice for heir of her line.”
“I assume a head of line already existed.”
Larrantin rolled his eyes. “Of course. But not all families decide inheritance by careful assassination; I did not have the sense that there was anything but amity between Azoria and her father, An’Berranin of old.”
“Her line was wiped out,” Kaylin then said.
“Ah. I see that I have been remiss. I am less aware of the changes in familial lines than I once was.”
“Did you know him?”
“He came to the Academia to visit Azoria from time to time; this was also considered unusual. He was not pleased when she chose to take up residence here with the rest of the students—she was well within her rights to come to classes during the day and return to the High Halls when those classes were finished.
“But she felt the travel time diminished the time she could spend on her research, and in the end, her father agreed. She was unusual for a Barrani—she felt the passage of time almost as keenly as mortals do.”
What had Berranin done?
What had Azoria done? Kaylin was certain that Azoria was at the center of the downfall.
“What did she study with you?”
“A better question would be: What did she not study? I told you, she was voracious; she wanted knowledge she didn’t have. The knowledge itself could be anything; she could learn new languages or dead languages with the same focus and dedication she learned to control her power for the more usual martial purposes. Remember that the Barrani have never been far from war, whether it be with Dragons or each other. The desire for dominance is, in the end, rooted in the desire for safety; if we rule everything, if we have the power to rule everything, we assume that we will be safe.”
“Not a good assumption,” Kaylin replied.
“I did not say it was intelligent; I merely described the impulse. She did not, however, speak of rulership. I believe she was, inasmuch as a Barrani of power can be, fond of her father. It was certainly due to her presence that he retained his hold upon his line.”
“And her mother?”
Silence.
“Did her mother survive?”
“No one in Berranin, if you are being accurate, survived.”
“Did her mother survive her birth, her existence? Was she set aside, was she assassinated?”
Larrantin smiled; there was nothing friendly about the expression. “As I was not aware that Berranin had been utterly excised, I cannot answer that question. As you would surmise if you were actually listening to my words. But I will offer you this: knowledge is power. You have no doubt heard that before in your extremely brief life; attend to the truth of it.
“The reason those who seek knowledge frequently fail to rise to positions of power is they seek only avenues of obvious power. They are focused solely on things that will grant them martial superiority, and they fail to learn enough to understand the subtlety of something as irrelevant—to them—as a dead language.
“I was considered an expert in certain fields—but I have fallen behind, and must myself become a student.” His smile became a wall. “If you should encounter Azoria—in whatever form she has taken—please send my regards.”
“You don’t believe she’s dead.”
Larrantin did not reply.
Starrante was silent until Larrantin had clearly finished speaking. “She was interested in portals, and in particular in the way we spin them. She could not spin them herself in the same way—there were biological limitations, and apparently your kind frequently consider the spinning of portals...socially rude?”
“It’s because it looks like you’re spitting,” Kaylin replied.
“Yes?”
“It’s usually considered a sign of contempt or disgust, at least among mortals. And Barrani manners are famously restrictive, so I imagine it was even more so for her. But you taught her?”
“I could not teach her to do what we do; she was not born to it. It frustrated her, but she accepted facts she could not—at that time—change. What we attempted to teach her was the underlying concept of the web itself.”
Bakkon chittered then; the chittering lasted for much longer. Kaylin didn’t understand the language, but she took some hint from the way he’d drawn his limbs toward his body. And the volume of the unintelligible words.
I would guess that what he attempted to teach is not taught. Clearly Starrante is cringing, Severn offered.
How can you tell?
Body hair, and the direction of the one eye he’s lifted from his central core.
“Bakkon is not pleased.”
“It was a long time ago,” Kaylin offered the angrier Wevaran.
“There is a reason,” he said, practically hissing, “that the web cannot be traversed or manipulated by outsiders—it is the heart of our people, the place from which we are born, and to which we return upon death.”
Kaylin immediately held up a hand as if she were still a mostly despised student in the Halls of Law.
Bakkon lifted a limb and waved it, which she assumed was an invitation to ask her question. “Is that like the Barrani Lake? Is that where you get your names from?”
Silence. Wrong question.
“Sorry—I know Dragons aren’t born with the entirety of their names; they’re not like Barrani, who can’t wake unless a name is bestowed upon them by someone who is not their mother. I didn’t mean to ask a question that’s somehow offensive.”
Starrante chittered in Bakkon’s direction. “He is old,” Starrante then said, almost apologetically, “and has always been somewhat... I believe Robin would call it ‘stuffy.’ Your question does not translate well; it is almost a threat.”
“Not what I intended. At all.” Kaylin spoke in emphatic High Barrani. “We don’t need True Names to wake. We don’t need True Names to exist. True Names are like magic, to us.”
“Technically speaking, they are indeed magic: so much power and so much that is unknowable. Even the so-called spells of the young are, to us, a scratch upon the surface of the power they are actually touching. We are born in very inhospitable circumstances. Many, many hatch—we have more young than the Dragons, when we survive to breed.
“But most of the children don’t survive. In the dark, we kill each other in a frenzy of hunger and fear. This has long caused...discomfort in other races, although we do not interact with any other people until we are fully adult. Once, perhaps, that might have been possible—but it would not be safe.
“We were not raised to value safety; our imperative was survival.”
Bakkon chittered again.
“Bakkon appears to have forgotten his manners,” Starrante said. “He does not like the direction any answer to your question might lead; it is the heart of his angry criticism of me. I will therefore not answer that question.”
Kaylin nodded, and chose to ask a different one. “With what you taught her, would it have been possible for Azoria to reach that place?”
“She would be highly unlikely to survive it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“She was bright and difficult, driven and proud. I see some of her in your Terrano, but he lacks her ferocity of focus, instead approaching things as if the entirety of creation is a puzzle game created just for him to play. It is a striking combination of personality and competence.”
“Striking because you think he should amount, in the end, to very little?”
“It is often the fate of those who descend into self-indulgence—but not always. It is possible that Azoria could have found a way to enter our birthing spaces, but she would then be faced with the hunger of our young.” He hesitated. “Adults do not remain within that web, and they do not return to it.”
“Could they?”
Bakkon shrieked.
Kaylin decided, given the rising of all the hair—and eyes—on the older Wevaran’s body, that she had no more pressing questions that needed answering.
Severn, however, disagreed. “If—and this is entirely hypothetical—Azoria had learned enough that she might enter your birthing place, what might she find there that she could use?”
Bakkon’s voice grew loud enough that Killian intervened, dampening the noise. “My apologies, Lord Kaylin, but the place of their birth is the place from which they eventually emerge as adults. It is not something that should be spoken of publicly—and to Bakkon, speaking of it to anyone from any race that is not Wevaran, is public. Barrani might respond in exactly the same fashion should you begin to carelessly discuss the Lake of Life in a fashion that might allow someone to reach it.”
Kaylin was silent for a beat, but that silence was filling with a growing discomfort.
Starrante was watching Kaylin, not Bakkon.
Kaylin had always been accused of being an open book, which could be a problem in more delicate investigations, and was the primary reason Marcus or the Hawklord didn’t send her to investigations that involved the monied and the powerful.
“There are things I should not speak of,” Starrante said. There was no anger in his voice; it seemed to Kaylin there was a mixture of sorrow and guilt. “It has been so long since I emerged I forget—and Bakkon reminds me that I have no excuse.
“But at the time, I felt it likely that there would be no more young—none of my kin, emerging from darkness into light. I wished the knowledge not to be lost. It is why, in the end, I am Arbiter and Bakkon could not be. I cannot see how Azoria could take what little information I could share and use it to her advantage—but the application of knowledge once considered harmless has oft been surprising.
“She could not use the birthing place to become what we are; she could not—to my knowledge—derive any power from it.”
Bakkon chittered, his voice more subdued.
“Yes,” Starrante replied, still speaking in Barrani. “If there were a clutch of young again, and she could somehow reach the birthing place and survive them, she could possibly derive power from that; Bakkon is afraid that she would become the Devourer, rather than the devoured; that it is not one of our kind who would emerge, but Azoria.
“But as I have told Bakkon: there are no young. The birthing place is empty of all words, all power, all life.”
Kaylin, who had decided that questions were a bad idea, nonetheless raised her hand.
“Yes?”
“Are you saying that the power to become adult is derived in its entirety from devouring your clutch mates?”
Starrante did not reply.
Kaylin was uncertain that she’d gotten what she needed from this visit to the Academia; she had questions—more questions—and distinct unease.
Larrantin, however, had taken hold of the question Kaylin probably shouldn’t have asked; he had questions of his own, and he asked them without apparent shame or delicacy. “You are implying that those of you who emerge have words at their core, just as the Barrani do, but they gain those words by devouring each other.
“Which implies—heavily—that in some fashion each of your clutch mates is born with a...fragment of a word? And that the devouring of the fragments somehow becomes a True Name?”
“I told you!” shrieked Bakkon, in the highest of pitches Kaylin had yet heard him use.
“Perhaps it is why we do not view our birth or our fight in the same fashion other races do,” Starrante conceded. “We feel we are all of our clutch. In some fashion, we are. Our birth is not your birth; it is not the hatching of the Dragons. It is certainly not the birth of the mortals, who live without necessary words and die so quickly, consumed in almost an instant by the ravages of time. There is no amity, no friendship, between any individual element of the clutch—and on occasion, not one, but two might emerge from the birthing place, although that is very, very rare.
“I am of the belief that Azoria could not benefit from any act of destruction she might attempt—but there is no evidence to bear that out. Arbiter Kavallac fears that Azoria attempts to become what Androsse’s people were—to rise above the truth of her existence as Barrani and to become more or other.”
Kaylin turned to Larrantin. “She was your student as well. Do you concur?”
“She did not speak to me of her ambitions in a general sense; as I said, she was interested in all knowledge that she did not herself possess. But if you ask my opinion? Yes, it is possible. She did not like barriers or boundaries; nor could she rest easily accepting them. You have, I am certain, heard tales of those mortals who attempted to become Immortal.”
She’d also had experience with them; it was always ugly.
“You were raised in the fiefs,” Killian said, which surprised Larrantin.
Kaylin nodded.
“You do not live there now. Had you accepted your station in life, the lot to which you were born, you would have remained in the fiefs. You would not have crossed the Ablayne.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Why? In both cases you attempt to rise above the circumstance of your birth.”
Kaylin was frustrated because this was true. But the question Larrantin asked seemed genuine rather than dismissive. “I accept that I’m human. I don’t consider being human to be a weakness or a sin. I have a full range of the possibilities available for humans. One of them isn’t becoming something other than mortal.
“We can make choices that defy social custom—any of us, from any race. But if we hate what we are...” She shook her head. “It’s not the same.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I will not argue. I have never felt an overwhelming desire to be something I am not, although I am certain many of my relatives had an almost overwhelming desire to mold me into their version of what I should be.”
Killian, thoughtful, surprised Kaylin. “Azoria did not accept her limitations. If you wish to understand all the things that might have gone wrong, I believe you will find better possible answers from Terrano and his friends.”
Terrano once again became visible. He didn’t look annoyed; he was too deep in thought for that. “I wasn’t trying to ignore our limitations,” he finally said, to Killian, the one person who could easily eject him from the premises, even if he couldn’t be certain he could keep him out.
“No. But I believe you—and all of your friends—were fundamentally altered by the green itself. Some part of you desired to return home.”
“Not me.”
“And some did not. You had years of experience existing to one side of the True Names that give the Barrani life, but that name was, nonetheless, yours. And you carry those names within you now, but your experience being almost nameless could not be unmade. What you are, now, is not what you were. You have leveraged that to do things that should not be possible, and would not be had you followed the designs laid out by your creator.”
Terrano shrugged. “You have no idea how boring it is to be stuck in a cell. It’s not that we wanted to be something more or other—we wanted to be free. And over the passage of centuries, we began to look for, to see, the cracks in the cage walls. Azoria wasn’t trapped as we were trapped, was she?”
“No, not to my knowledge. But perhaps she felt ignorance and the limitations of her personal power were as much a cage as a Hallionne. Regardless, you have what answers you might find in the Academia at present. Should the two Arbiters come to an armistice and decide there is information of relevance, I shall ask the chancellor to send you a letter.”
Kaylin knew a dismissal when she heard one.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I would be delighted by your company, but the chancellor now desires my attention—and the privacy in which to receive it.”
Serralyn, sent from the office, met them as they were leaving, somewhat out of breath.
“Sedarias says she’s found some information about Azoria.” The Barrani student’s eyes were dark blue. “She asks that you return home so that we can discuss it in safety, and she further asks that you...stop talking about her anywhere other people can hear you.”
Kaylin turned to Terrano. He looked, to her surprise, uneasy, but after a pause, he nodded. “I’m to accompany you on your way home.”
“You think some Barrani would be stupid enough to throw his life away trying to end mine?”
“Personally? No. But Sedarias is being Sedarias; she sees assassins everywhere.”
“She has her reasons,” Serralyn added. “And she’s right more often than she’s wrong. I admit your visit today has filled me with doubt. You caused a huge argument between the two Arbiters, and I think Bakkon is going to get cramps from the rigidity of whatever shock he received. Maybe this really isn’t a good idea.”
“If Azoria has nothing at all to do with the trapped ghosts, I’ll drop it, okay?”
Terrano snorted. “Sedarias points out that the ghosts are dead. It’s not like you’re saving their lives.”
Serralyn winced. “Please ignore that,” she said. “Mandoran agrees with you—he points out that we were trapped for a lot longer, but at least our cage was sentient and predisposed to actually care about our welfare.”
“I take it you agree as well?”
“I don’t want to start a fight—or join one—but yes, since you ask, I agree with Mandoran. But I also agree with Sedarias. If lords of power decide that your investigation is a genuine threat to their interests, you’re being too careless with your own safety.
“Terrano is pretty capable, even if he doesn’t look it.”
“Oh, believe we’re fully aware of that,” Kaylin replied.
Serralyn flushed.
Terrano grinned. He was clearly willing to let bygones be bygones, but he would be: Kaylin hadn’t made any attempt to kill him. On the other hand, the Consort had forgiven him, and appeared to have forgotten about the actions that had been such a threat to her. Kaylin loved some of the Barrani, but admitted she would never fully understand them.
Then again, she could sympathize with Terrano’s goals at the time, and could understand why everything had happened. So maybe she could.
Severn was quieter, but she noticed that he didn’t branch off to return to his own home.
“You’re coming with us?”
“If you have no objections.”
She didn’t. She wouldn’t have minded having Severn under Helen’s roof; Helen could make a home within that home for anyone of any race, and besides, things were almost too quiet since Bellusdeo had taken on her Tower and become absorbed in her new responsibilities. Kaylin had offered once or twice; Severn had never accepted. She understood that his need for privacy, for space of his own that did not magically shift beneath his feet when it felt change was necessary, was completely valid. It was, until Helen and the cohort, what she thought she’d wanted for herself.
Severn smiled and shook his head slightly. He didn’t speak.
As there were no waiting assassins of any stripe—and Kaylin and Severn paid attention at street level and everything above it that seemed like a likely place for assassins to park—they made decent time. Helen was, as she always was, waiting at the door from the moment Kaylin stepped across the fence line. All of it—fences, manicured lawn, garden, and house were part of Helen; once you crossed that line, you were in her territory.
If you intended harm to her tenants—or their guests—you were in for a world of pain.
Still, no one mentioned Azoria or the Academia outing until they had entered the house—Kaylin pausing to accept a welcome home hug that was not extended to anyone else, although Helen did beam happily at Serralyn—and the door had shut behind them.
“I feel that you should all eat first, and dinner is on the table.”
Kaylin, hungry, agreed. She therefore headed to her room to change out of her work clothing and wash up. Her home clothing on most days looked a lot like her work clothing—she didn’t like to fuss about clothing, but made allowance for weather; it was the only time clothing had truly mattered in her childhood.
There was too much information, and it was too tangled to properly assess; she’d reached the point where she needed more in order to untangle the mess. Given all of the reactions to the name Azoria, she hoped that that one thread could be understood and put firmly aside.
Hah. Who was she kidding? She’d never been that lucky.
She dressed and headed back down the stairs to the dining room, where she paused in the doorway. Sedarias was seated to one side of Kaylin’s normal seat, which wasn’t unusual. She was wearing a very elaborate gown—with edges that seemed to be made of solid metal, none of it warm gold—and her eyes, when she turned to meet Kaylin’s, were almost black.