The ground continued its tremble, but the Consort didn’t appear to be concerned. “It’s the Tower,” she said softly as she released Kaylin and stepped back. She then changed her mind and linked her right arm with Kaylin’s left as she turned toward the closed door. “I believe you will find, when we exit this place, that there have been some architectural changes in the High Halls.” She was smiling.
The door opened, swinging out, toward the silent observers.
Hope squawked, and this one appeared to contain no words.
A man—a Barrani man—stepped through the door frame into the cavern. Even as Kaylin watched, the seamless stone of the wall that contained the door spread to encompass the rest of the cavern; the uneven, rough stone gave way to something that looked architecturally worked, although the height of the ceiling continued to defy Kaylin’s vision; she couldn’t see it.
There was no chasm between the Barrani man who had stepped through the door and the rest of the staging ground for the battle, evidence of which was also being unmade or remade beneath their feet. There was no bridge, because a bridge was no longer necessary.
He looked around the room, craning his neck up, and up again; Kaylin thought he would fall over, but he righted himself—by adding an extra leg.
Terrano, who had moved away as the Consort approached, snickered.
The stranger looked down. “Yes,” he said, although no one had spoken. “Yes. I understand.” At this distance, his eyes should have been impossible to see. They weren’t. They were gold, and radiant, as if they were windows open to sunlight.
“The Tower,” the Consort said. “The Tower is speaking to him now.” She didn’t ask Kaylin what she’d done; she seemed to understand it.
He lost the extra leg as he walked toward the Consort. Ynpharion moved to stand between them, but she waved him away.
But it wasn’t the Consort that the person who had been their Adversary sought. He approached Kaylin. He did not bow, but stood, almost stiffly, at attention. He didn’t blink, and the odd stiffness, the subtle errors in the presentation of expression, reminded Kaylin very much of Winston, brother to the Hallionne Bertolle in the West March.
“Chosen.”
She waited. Sadly, so did he. He was no doubt immortal. He had forever. He won. “What will you do now?”
He smiled, or his eyes did; his face was almost grave. “I...am not certain. Once, I dreamed that I might do anything, were I free to make that choice. And now you have given me freedom of a kind, and I find myself...overwhelmed. There is a noise that I no longer hear, and an impulse that I am no longer forced to obey.”
She hesitated, and then said, “What were you, before?”
He stared at her as if he didn’t understand the question.
He doesn’t, Hope squawked.
“Where’s Spike?”
As if speaking the name—admittedly not a verygoodname—a small, floating ball, with his namesake, metallic thorns, appeared to Kaylin’s right. It was buzzing and humming, with a series of clicks that implied speech.
Do you trust him?Spike finally asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what he wants.”
This appeared to confuse Spike, but the confusion was brief.It is too big a risk.Before she could speak, Spike said,He is not what you once were. Your Hawklord could have had you killed or jailed if you proved to be dangerous. You cannot do the same here. The chance you had, you failed to take.
“Your servant does not appear to approve of your decision.” He then turned to the Consort. “I heard your song.”
She smiled, her eyes still green.
“You did not sing to me—but I heard it. It is an old, old song. Where did you learn it?”
She shook her head.
“I would hear it again.”
“Yes,” was the serene reply. “You will. But not today, not this moment. Perhaps when the song was new, there were voices who could carry it without effort—but I am not what they were; I am not what you are. Perhaps you might sing it yourself.”
He shook his head. “I cannot sing.” Kaylin couldn’t carry a tune to save her life—or anyone else’s, if it came to that. “Not all of your words will return to their resting place.”
The Consort nodded. “Not while you live, no. But very few of those words are within you, and the rest have returned to enrich my kin, my kind. I echo the words of the Chosen. What will you do?”
