This transformation was unlike the transformation most Dragons underwent, to Kaylin’s eye. The uncomfortable transitional moments where skin became scale and limbs both elongated and bent in directions that would have caused severe injuries in any other race were missing in their entirety. One moment, Kavallac was a woman about seven or eight inches taller than Kaylin, and the next, she was an amorphous cloud. The spread of cloud or fog continued—at speed—until the entire area in immediate view was covered in it.
The fog then solidified, all of it drawn into the hardening lines of a ghostly Dragon.
“Climb,” the Dragon said.
“I will walk,” Arbiter Androsse replied. “Chosen?”
Kaylin looked up—pointedly—at a ceiling she couldn’t quite see.
“It is best that you accept Kavallac’s kind offer. Hold the books, Chosen. And if it is possible, while you are airborne, read the words.”
“The runes?”
“The runes that adorn the covers of these books.”
“It’s not possible while I’m in flight. If you want me to try, I’ll need to stand here for a bit.”
“I will not drop you if your attention is momentarily elsewhere.”
It wouldn’t be momentary. Kaylin, books clutched in one arm, attempted to climb the Dragon’s back. To her surprise, the ghostly and translucent body was also rock-solid. Kavallac’s Draconic form was as real as Bellusdeo’s would have been.
Kaylin doubted that Bellusdeo would attempt to fly in this room, though. The ceilings that she had seen in the glow of the Arkon’s summoned light were high—but not, in Kaylin’s opinion, high enough. She wasn’t about to argue with Kavallac’s certainty that they were, though.
The thing I don’t understand, Kaylin said to Nightshade as she seated herself,is Killian. We’reinthe outlands, or the primal ether—whatever it’s called. You—and a couple of other Barrani—are here, and you still have your names.
The names are anchored to us; we are inseparable.
She nodded.But... Killian is here. There are words here. The... Arbiters are here. Larrantin, in some form, is here. Let’s ignore the question of True Names. If Killian is, like Helen, composed of and driven by the words at his core, those words shouldn’t lose their power. Killian is alive.
Yes.
So the prohibition—or the inability—is based on the speaking of words, or the speaking of words that grant life, in the outlands.
I believe that is what has been said. I also believe that the roots that you speak of are bound by form. My True Name is mine. It is rooted in me. I am of our plane of existence, even here. To shift that, to change it, requires time—time that the cohort had in their slow transformation over the centuries. Time and will.
The Arkon’s True Name is likewise rooted and preserved. But Killian’s is not. The physical body he possesses requires external anchors, external roots. He cannot move those roots; no more can the Hallionne. Killian was cast into the outlands by the very nature of the Towers that rose.
But if he’s a building—
He was not built to withstand the Shadows, Nightshade replied.I believe he wishes to speak with you.
He’s becoming more...more awake, isn’t he?
I believe so.
“The words themselves both provide power and sustenance, and require it. They were, for the Ancients, the very source of life, and even in smaller fragments, they are potent. You are not wed to those fragments—you and your kin. We are. But we are wrought from the story of the world itself; we are not added to it. What is the question you wish to ask?”
Kaylin drew breath; Nightshade did not. “Was it the Towers? When they rose, did the Towers anchor you somehow, so that you might survive their creation?”
“That is my belief.”
“If you’re anchored to the Towers, can you speak with them?”
One eye narrowed, as he only had the one. “That is not a question that occurred me to ask,” he finally said.
Robin’s hand shot up. “I need to use the bathroom,” he said. This was not what Kaylin expected.
“Very well. You have permission.” August permission, indeed.
