Cast In Ruin Part 25

"Lord Kaylin," he said, voice grave. His visor rose over emerald eyes that had a little too much blue in them to indicate happiness. "Lord Nightshade will join you shortly."

"I can enter the portcullis," she replied. "The danger's been contained."

"I merely follow my Lord's orders."

She grimaced. It wasn't that she was eager to cross the Castle threshold; she wasn't. The portcullis always landed her on her knees, and she always had to fight the horrible nausea that accompanied its pa.s.sage. But there were some conversations she didn't want to have in the open street, and the back door into the Castle involved a long drop into an unused well.

"We've heard of the difficulties facing Lord Tiamaris," Andellen said as Kaylin more or less shuffled her feet. She stopped.

"From who?"

It wasn't a question that Andellen would answer. Fair enough; she was the one who had come, like a beggar, for information. "Tiamaris has a few difficulties. Some of them-the introduction of a few thousand foreigners-are mostly under control."

"The border?"

"It's solid. What's attempting to break the barrier is pretty d.a.m.n solid, too-but so far, the Tower is winning." She hesitated for a moment and then added, "The storms are bad, though."

"Have they been markedly worse since the introduction of your foreigners?"

"They're not my foreigners."

"Ah."

"It is a figure of speech that can surely be forgiven," a new voice said. A new, familiar voice. Lord Nightshade, in perfect silence, had arrived through the portcullis. Unlike Andellen, he wore no armor; he wore dark robes and a long cape that was the same night black of his hair. His eyes were a mix of green and blue, and even at this distance, Kaylin had the distinctly uncomfortable impression that she could see her reflection in them.

But he nodded to Severn. "Corporal Handred."

Severn nodded-a bit stiffly-back. "Lord Nightshade."

"You have a personal interest in the fief of Tiamaris, do you not?" the Lord of Nightshade asked, as if his greeting, once offered, could be entirely discarded.

Kaylin stopped herself from shrugging. "I do."

"It is interesting. I have watched the borders with care since Lord Tiamaris took the Tower. He appears to be building."

"He's been building."

"To what end?"

"He wants a different fief than the one occupied by either Illien or Barren. Not more, not less."

"He has, if rumor is true, cut off the source of most of Barren's previous wealth."

"It's true."

"What, then, does he do to fund his...reconstruction?"

"You can ask him. I'm not an accountant."

Nightshade's eyes shaded to a more definite blue. It distanced him. She wanted that. "I had not expected Lord Tiamaris to show such an unnatural concern for mortals."

Kaylin bridled, but managed to say nothing. Not that it mattered; Nightshade generally knew what she was thinking. Then again, so did Diarmat, and he gave her points for strict adherence to the forms of protocol. It was, she told herself grimly, good practice.

"The borders of Tiamaris are not the only borders to see an increase of activity. Yet they are the only borders to face such a proliferation of Shadowstorm. Do you-or does Lord Tiamaris-have any opinion as to why?"

"No."

"And that is not why you have come."

"No. It probably should be," she added.

He raised a brow, no more. "Come," he finally said. "I will escort you through the portal. I have wine and sweet water, if you will take either, and some refreshments have been prepared."

By "escort," Nightshade meant carry. It should have been more uncomfortable; Severn wasn't happy with it. But while Kaylin was in his arms, the portal became a dark pa.s.sage, no more, no less; Nightshade made himself a barrier through which the worst of the portal's magical effects appeared to be too terrified to pa.s.s.

It is not the portal, he told her, but the Castle; I am its Lord. I control it when I so choose.

They exited the portal in the foyer, as they always did. It was almost obscenely brilliant, and if she felt no nausea and none of the usual disorientation, she still had to close her eyes. Nightshade, taking little notice of her weight-and even less of her dignity-continued to move. She opened her eyes as quickly as possible, and asked him to put her down.

He did, and he did it gracefully. He then led them to the room in which he often entertained Kaylin; she a.s.sumed it was where he entertained any other guests he didn't intend to torture to death as an example for the rest of the fief. She held on to that thought as if her life depended on it.

"Welcome," Nightshade said, "to my Castle. Corporal, Private, please take a seat and make yourselves comfortable."

Food had been arranged in the usual artful, spa.r.s.e way on several small dishes that ran the length of the low table. Kaylin sunk into the long couch. Severn hesitated for a minute and then joined her. Nightshade waited until they were as settled as they were going to be before he also sat.

"Kaylin, when you faced the Devourer, or perhaps directly afterward, you were in the streets. Did you understand the singular nature of what you witnessed?"

Thinking of streets packed with near-giants, all bristling with completely practical weaponry-if one happened to be that large-she nodded.

He raised a brow. "The foreigners were, I admit, unusual, but it was not of their arrival that I spoke. It was of the flight of the Dragon Court, absent only the Emperor and the Arkon."

"Oh. That. Yes, I saw it." She could still see it if she closed her eyes and concentrated, although the image was growing fuzzy. What remained in memory in a way that time couldn't dislodge was the sound of their voices, the trumpeting roar of defiance or anger or-something.

"Were you aware of the reason for their flight?"

Frowning, she nodded. "Something rose from the fiefs."

"From the heart of the fiefs, Kaylin."

"I saw it. It looked like smoke or shadow."

"You heard it. What did it sound like to you?"

She closed her eyes. "Roaring."

"Yes."

"...Dragon's roar."

"Yes, I believe so. I heard it," he added quietly. "And Meliannos, my sword, heard it, as well. It was the voice of the Outcaste Dragon."

"It wasn't." Kaylin had heard the Outcaste. She'd almost been flattened into bone paste by him. She knew his voice. "It was."

"I'm telling you it couldn't have been. You've seen him. You've fought him. He was a Dragon."

"And I am telling you that Meliannos recognized his voice. It was the Outcaste." He reached for the crystal decanter in which a dark, burgundy wine was airing. From it, he poured a few ounces into each of three crystal gla.s.ses. He offered them to Kaylin and Severn. Kaylin took one almost absently; Severn accepted one, but set it on the table untouched.

"How could he be Shadow? He's alive. I'd bet everything I own, he's alive. He's not like the undying immortals, if the Dragons have ever had those."

"He exists in the heart of the fief. He does not own it; he does not rule it."

"How can you be so certain?"

"The same way I was certain that Barren was not the Lord of his Tower. There is only one name that comes across the border, and it is Ravellon. If the Outcaste finds some method of holding the fief's heart as his own, it is not that name I will hear."

"But he-"

"Yes. He has already beguiled Shadow in some fashion; it is clear now that Shadow has also beguiled him. They are joined; I cannot clearly see how. But perhaps that is not why you chose to pay this visit?"

She crushed the irritation the question produced as quickly as she could. "No, it's not." She hated people who insisted on asking questions when they already knew the answer.

"And the question?"

"In the past week, several corpses have appeared in Tiamaris."

"Given the activity along your borders, that is not surprising."

"The corpses didn't appear along the border-if they had, they'd be less alarming. Not less suspicious, on the other hand. These bodies appeared throughout the fief, and I'm here to ask if you've made similar discoveries."

"People have died in the fief within the last week," was the noncommittal reply.

Kaylin turned to Severn; Severn nodded and pulled the memory crystal out of his pouch. He set it in the curve of his palm and spoke the activating words. The image flowered instantly within the confines of the room, and as it did, it leeched light from everything else. Kaylin, who'd watched the image for hours the previous day, didn't remember that particular effect.

Nightshade's eyes were now an almost royal blue, although Kaylin thought that was an artifact of shadow, not mood. "Who," the fieflord said after long moments in which he looked at nothing else, "is this?"

"We don't know."

"And it is her corpse that you found?"

"It's her corpse that was found, yes. Seven times."

Severn set the crystal in the center of the table, carefully rearranging the dishes that had been laid out first. "Do you recognize her?" he asked.

"I? No. Not precisely."

"Have you found a similar corpse?"

Nightshade was silent for a long moment, at the end of which he answered. "No. Is she mortal?"

"An odd question." Severn glanced at Kaylin, and handed the rest of the conversation off to her.

"We a.s.sumed she was, initially."

"How did she die?"

"We're uncertain. The bodies are being examined now." After a pause, Kaylin added, "I don't think we're going to get any answers from that examination, though."

Nightshade leaned forward. Lifting his hand, he reached out; his palm stopped an inch from the image's face. "Her style of dress is unusual."

"Not as unusual as the fact there are-or were-seven of her."

"Agreed." He lifted his gla.s.s and looked through the dark wine. "What do you suspect, Kaylin?"

"I don't know. But there's a possibility that she is-and is not-a Dragon."

She'd surprised him. Nightshade didn't particularly like to be surprised. "This is why Tiamaris sent you?"

"This is why I chose to come here, yes."

"Kaylin, I cannot play games with words for the whole of the day. Tell me what you know and what you suspect."

"If there are none of her corpses in this fief, it's not relevant."

His eyes flashed blue. "And you will absent yourself entirely from the fief of Tiamaris until any present danger is past?"

"No."

"Then it is not irrelevant." He walked around the table, examining the image. "Seven corpses appeared."

"Yes. There's some reason to suspect that they didn't arrive in the fief as corpses, but they didn't survive for long."

His eyes widened; that much surprise he couldn't conceal. Turning, he said, "Where and when? You told me the borders of Tiamaris are secure."

"They are now. But during the end of Barren's crumbling reign, they weren't. I think there's some chance that there were small, localized Shadowstorms in the actual streets of the fief, not beyond its border. There are certainly storms beyond its border now."

"And you think the storms are responsible for the corpses?"

"I can't think of anything else that would be. The corpses don't radiate magic, and they would if they'd been transformed after death. If they'd somehow been transformed before death, I don't think they'd radiate magic-but I do think they'd be tainted with very detectable Shadow."

"Shadow?"

"There's no magic I know of offhand that can entirely transform a living body. None except Shadow. Tara would know if that had happened. A dead body's been transformed in small ways before, but that leaves visible traces, regardless."

"Are you so certain that this is as true of Dragon bodies as it is of mortal ones?"

She hadn't mentioned Dragon corpses. "No. Would it be true of Barrani corpses?"

"...No. Do not pursue that avenue of questioning any further. It is irrelevant if, as you claim, the victim arrived alive and died shortly thereafter; it was not her corpse that was transformed."