Edelonne flinched. “An’Mellarionne is waiting below. He and a handful of the other Lords of the Court are now engaged in a ceremony of some kind.”
“Ceremony?” The word was sharp, far sharper than the Consort’s natural voice.
“They—they believe they can...” Edelonne swallowed audibly. “They believe they can free the dead.”
“Ah. That is something I very much desire. How, exactly, is this freedom to be achieved?”
“I—I don’t know, Lady. We—we were not important enough to be—to be informed.”
Spike was agitated. Very agitated.
Hope spoke. “Spike asks me to inform you that there is a danger.”
“No kidding. Can he tell us what it is?”
“Yes. The Shadows cannot directly draw power from the True Words. The words that grant Barrani life—that grant Dragons life—are meant for the living; they are meant to be eternal, and enclosed, in the forms created for your kind.”
“Wait. Wait. Powercanbe drawn from True Names. It was the entirepointof the attack on the Hallionne Orbaranne.”
“Power,” he said quietly, “can be drawn from True Names byyour kind. The creature at the base of the High Halls is not your kind; it is not power that he can access. Could he, he would not be captive; every Barrani who failed the test would provide fuel for his eventual escape. He can provide power to your kind—but it requires a bridge, some passage between him and the person to whom he grants power. That power is not the power of the True Names.” Spike continued to click and whir, the buzzing becoming higher and higher in pitch.
“But...the words in the Lake weremeantfor your kind. The Barrani draw power and sustenance from those words instinctively and automatically. They do not need to consider the power or the flow of power; it is the heart of their ability to interact.”
As the words sank it, Kaylin blanched. “He needs Barrani agents.”
“Yes. It is the nature of Shadow to change what it touches, if it has the power. The Shadows can shift or alter the shape of words, can subtly bend their meaning. You have some experience with this.”
Kaylin nodded.
“If a bridge is built between the Adversary and the Barrani, and it is strong enough, the Barrani can then draw enough power through the captive names that they can, in turn, free him.”
“But if they have that kind of power—”
“Yes. Those names will be lost for eternity. And we are likely to be lost with them.”
Chapter 24
Kaylin repeated what Hope had said. Edelonne remained supine; the Consort did not give her leave to rise, and even if she had, Kaylin had doubts that Edelonne could have done so with any grace at all.
“Spike is frantic,” Kaylin told them.
“The Shadows taught the Barrani how to absorb Shadow, to draw power from it.” The Consort wasn’t asking a question. It was a statement, but it lacked a bit in the truth department. Kaylin was afraid that Terrano had been one of their teachers, but understood why this could not be—and could never be—said out loud.
She believes you to be incorrect, Ynpharion helpfully said.She thinks that what Terrano taught allowed the Barrani involved to be...caught in the subtle deception of the Adversary. The freedom they sought from the burden of their own names allowed them to interact with the Adversary more directly than their Barrani kin. There is a reason that we are Barrani and Spike is not.
“The Barrani don’t need to be taught how to absorb power. There’s a reason the Emperor has made the study of Shadow illegal. And a reason that the idiots at the Arcanum ignore the laws.” She couldn’t force herself to make an exception for present company, but Evarrim didn’t care what Kaylin thought.
Spike hadn’t stopped spinning.
“We need to move,” Kaylin told everyone. “If Edelonne is right, we needed to move before we managed to fight our way through to this hall.”
“Is there anything else awaiting us?” the Consort asked, voice cool.
“There probably will be,” Kaylin said, glancing at Averen’s corpse. “If the other person who held his name is on the wrong side, they’ll know what happened here. Even if they aren’t, one of the three fled in the direction of the cavern.”
“Can your familiar go ahead?”
“He can’t do anything I couldn’t theoretically do on my own.”
