Michelle Sagara - Cast in Chaos

“It is why the Arkon strongly believes in the overlapping world theory. The spontaneous creation of an entire species—or three—is otherwise lacking in credibility. Not when they are, to all intents and purposes, sentient.”

Since this was about as complimentary as the Immortals generally condescended to be when discussing the merely mortal, Kaylin managed to stay silent.

“There are one or two scholars who disagree with this commonly held view,” he added. “And if you wish to peruse their papers, the Arkon can point them out to you. They are in the normal section of the Library, in which it is much, much more difficult to earn his ire.”

His abuse of the word commonly was about as bad as Kaylin’s abuse of the word punctual.

“So…humans arrived here, heralded by freak storms and two-headed Barrani babies.”

“That is not exactly what I said, but it will do.”

“How did they arrive?”

“That,” he replied, “is the question. We have no solid information from that period. It was not recent, and much of the information we had was lost.”

“Lost?”

“Lost,” he replied, in a tone of voice that approximated the sound of a very heavy door slamming. “If the Arkon’s conjecture—and it is a tentative conjecture—proves true, we will have an answer.”

“And you expect we’ll also have a large crater in the middle of the city.”

“That is, unfortunately, one of our fears, yes. The Emperor has already called an emergency meeting with the Lord of Swords and the Lord of Hawks. I believe the Lord of Wolves is also involved, but in an advisory capacity.”

It made sense; evacuating even a small building in times of emergency generally required the Swords. Evacuating blocks and blocks of small buildings—many of them somewhat upscale—would probably require an army. “You can’t move Evanton,” she said.

“No. The Keeper, however, is likely to survive whatever occurs. He is not our concern.”

She nodded. “If it’s close to where he is, though, could he do something to stop it?”

“If it is necessary, perhaps.”

“You don’t think so.”

“No. And it is my belief that it would pose a risk to the Garden should he try.”

“Making the cure more deadly than the disease.” She glanced out of the window as the carriage turned up the drive to the Halls. The guards that stopped the carriage stopped it for a matter of seconds; Sanabalis was a recognized visitor, and even had he not been, the carriage was marked all over with signs of Imperial ownership. “I don’t suppose the human Caste Hall has any useful libraries?”

“Compared to the Imperial ones? No. And I would thank you not to repeat that question in the Arkon’s hearing.” The carriage pulled to a stop very close to the guarded doors. “Come. Master Sabrai is expecting us.”

Master Sabrai was, in fact, waiting at the doors. He looked, at first glance, as if he’d gotten about as much sleep as Kaylin; she wondered what was keeping his eyes open. Hers were now running on the certainty of impending doom. He executed an enviable, perfect bow as Sanabalis crossed the threshold. “Lord Sanabalis.”

“Master Sabrai,” the Dragon replied, returning the bow with a nod. He waited until Master Sabrai had straightened out to as much of his full height as a bleary-eyed, clearly exhausted man could attain before he added, “The evening was eventful?”

“Let us just say,” Master Sabrai replied, with a wince, “that your inquiries were not untimely.”

“How bad was it?”

“It has not—yet—reached the proportions of the previous incident. Not all of our Oracles are almost sharing the same dreams or visions, and we have not—yet—reached the point where those who can live off grounds are also simultaneously entering a vision state.”

“You expect it.” Flat words, no question in them.

“If last night was any indication, Lord Sanabalis, yes. I do. Some preparations are being made. They are being handled by Sigrenne and her assistant. I have some written reports, mostly taken by Sigrenne and two of the other attendants. I was…otherwise occupied or I would have seen to it myself.”

Sanabalis grimaced, a clear indication that he did not consider Sigrenne’s transcription to be of the highest quality. “Have you examined them?”

“I have not had the chance to examine all of them, no. If you are looking for an estimate of convergence, I cannot give you one that would meet the standards of the Oracular Halls.”

“What estimate would you hazard, if you were not held to those standards?”

It was clearly the question that Sabrai had been both expecting and dreading. “Everly did not sleep at all last night. He has been painting like a possessed man.”

“How serious an attempt did you make to stop him?”

“It’s only the first day,” was the evasive reply. “It is not, yet, a matter of safety. He will eat, if food is provided, and he drinks when water is provided. But he does not otherwise interact with anything but the painting.”

“Not a good sign,” the Dragon Lord said softly. He glanced at Kaylin.

“No.”

“What is his subject?”

“That, I believe, you will have to see for yourself,” was the quiet reply. “I cannot describe it.”

“It’s not, in your opinion, trivial?” Kaylin asked, speaking for the first time.

“No, sadly, it is not.”

Everly’s room smelled of paint; it was the first thing Kaylin noticed when the door was open, in large part because she wasn’t as tall as either Sabrai or Sanabalis and she couldn’t actually see past their bulk into the gallery that served as the boy’s room. They stood in the door for that little bit too long before finally moving through it and out of her way.

The canvas that Everly had been stretching with such focus now sat on a large set of wooden legs. The back of the painting, as usual, faced the door, obscuring the artist himself; the windows at Everly’s back provided the light by which he was, in theory, working. Kaylin wished, for a moment, that the office could be more like this; usually work was punctuated with little things like obscenities, gossip, and the damned window, which never, ever, shut up.

Master Sabrai approached the side of the painting, and disappeared behind its edge; Sanabalis, after a pause, did the same. Five minutes of silence later, Kaylin repented: she had heard funerals which were more lively. She didn’t wait for an invitation; she also took a small detour around the edge of Everly’s canvas, but chose the opposite side. The small, flat table that held his palette, paints, brushes, various cloths, and a box of charcoal sticks of varying widths and lengths happened to be on that side; she almost ran into it, and managed to dodge collision at the last second.

Everly had clearly been working without stop. The edges of the canvas were almost blank; some sketching had been done, and what looked like flat representations of nearly familiar buildings rose in black and gray against a white sky, like inverted ghosts. No obvious signs or flags marked those buildings; they were clearly abstracted from an Elantran street, but Kaylin, who was more than passingly familiar with most of them, couldn’t immediately place which one.

And placement was made urgent by what Everly had painted.

A cloud made of night hovered above cobbled stones that were clearly colored by the sun at its height. Its edges were blurred and indistinct, but this wasn’t just smudging of paint or color sketching. Stars could be seen, and the livid glow of some thing that seemed either red moon or blood sun hung close to the blurred edge itself. The cloud was contained in what seemed almost a garish, ornate door frame, absent a door.