A sculpture emerged as bits of the water fell; in the end, what was left was a building. No, Kaylin thought. Two buildings. Three. Four. One of these, she was certain, was Helen. No. It was what Helen had been on the eve of her creation. Kaylin couldn’t tell which of the four was meant to be the building she now called home. Nor was she certain that one of the other three was the building that Killian called home.
The Arkon’s eyes were a less deep orange; he lowered his inner membranes, his frown becoming one of concentration, rather than annoyance at the presumption of a lowly Hawk.
“Your theory, Corporal?”
“That the mirror responds not to the commands, but the person who is making them.”
“You will not test your theories in the future without explaining them and receiving the requisite permission.”
“The Towers were created afterRavellonfell, right? But there were buildings that were created before that fall. The Hallionne, for one. Helen. I want to see the buildings that existed in what eventually became Elantra, because buildings don’t—in theory—have the ability to move.”
The Arkon nodded.
“You’ve seen this before.”
“Many, many times.” The words were almost bitter.
“Do you know which one is Helen?”
“Ask the mirror to separate the buildings by geography. I can—with difficulty—command Imperial Records to overlay the boundaries of Elantra as it is currently constituted over it.”
With difficultymeant a lot of spoken Dragon. Kaylin grimaced. “I’m not sure that’s necessary,” she said far too quickly.
He stared at her, unblinking.
“...but it could be helpful.”
He then continued in his native tongue. There was a moment of serious dislocation; the water shuddered so violently in place, Kaylin wasn’t certain it wouldn’t explode outward—which would have been a career-limiting disaster of the worst kind given the Arkon, his hoard, and the fact that she would be tangentially related to the damage.
She exhaled only when the shaking stopped. The water sculptures then shrank, separating as a faint map of the city of Elantra came into view. It was, unlike the buildings, flat; it was difficult to read. If she hadn’t been familiar with maps, and with this one in particular because it related to work, she wouldn’t have been able to read it at all.
“Couldn’t you do it in reverse?” When the Arkon failed to answer, she added, “Take the contents of this mirror and append them to Imperial Records?”
“Ask your Helen, when you return home, why I have made the decision not to do so.”And don’t, his curt tone implied,bother the Arkon. “This,” he added, indicating one building, “is where your Helen now stands.”
The building looked nothing at all like Helen. It looked far more like a Tower, and at that, an unfriendly one. It was situated in the center of a much larger patch of land than Helen currently occupied. Helen could—and did—change her appearance to better suit her inhabitants. But it was a pretty drastic change, in Kaylin’s opinion. This building looked impressive and forbidding.
It was not Helen that she was interested in, or not immediately.
She looked across the city. There were three other buildings, distinct from Helen. Outside of the fiefs, Helen was, or had been, the only sentient building of which she’d been aware. Ah, no. There.
She recognized the old High Halls. It looked remarkably like the new High Halls; the period between creation and...repair...had been erased. That was two.
The Imperial Palace was not a sentient building. Kaylin sort of understood why. If a building like Helen existed, and the Imperial Palace could have been constructed around it, the Emperor was not the man to let anything else make decisions for him. Not when there were no effective remedies or consequences for the wrong ones.
There were two buildings left, but she focused on only one of them: it seemed to be in the center of the city. Near, if not in,Ravellon; the map itself was not large, and the building had not been created with scale in mind.
“This one,” she said.
Three other buildings, including her own home, melted into liquid and vanished. The fourth remained.
Unlike Helen, this building didn’t radiate doom on the surface. It appeared to be similar to what the High Halls had been prior to the repair of its central sentience. It was large—how large was hard to assess, given the lack of actual scale—and she remembered that Killian had said it had once been a school.
What kind of school would it have been? What would classes taught by something that could literally change the environment of its students on a whim have been like?
“Lannagaros?” Bellusdeo rumbled, concern in her voice.
“It is nothing. Continue, Corporal.”
