Page 190 of Cast in Conflict

“I don’t, you might recall, want to ask them right now. Whatever you did to drag us both here, Shadow was involved. I don’t want to take the risk of opening them up to the same thing.”

“Don’t try that with me. You were watching us at the time. You know what Terrano saw.”

“Fine.” The hand on her shoulder tightened. “I’ll look—but I can’t guarantee anything. Whatever Bakkon is fighting, it’s not like Spike.”

“Are you sure?”

“Does it look like Spike to you?”

“Spike was a historian—this would be the right place for him.” But no, he looked nothing like Spike did, at least not in the normal world. “What does he look like to you?”

“I’m trying to see him,” was the snappish reply.

Bakkon was holding his breath, and not for the same reason Kaylin was. The High Halls—the creature at its center—what happened to them?

They’re more or less what they were before Ravellon fell. I think.

The Shadow we face is not like your Spike, if I understand your thoughts. But they were once a friend.

“No,” Mandoran said, his voice much softer. “What Terrano did, I can’t do. Not here. Not with that.” He hesitated.

“What would you need, to be able to do it?”

“I’d need to be able to catch it in my hands. I’d need to be able to cut it off entirely from the source. While not dying and not being absorbed by it.”

Or not being transformed by it. Kaylin bit her lip and made a decision. Yes, if it were in her power she wanted to save everyone; that was her job. But Mandoran was a friend; the blob was a stranger who would probably kill Mandoran if Mandoran made the attempt. “Bakkon—come with us,” she said again.

She could feel his hesitation. Could feel something that was almost hope—and she knew this one well. Hope was bitter. Having hope—and she had had none when she had finally crossed the bridge over the Ablayne the first time—led to nothing but pain. Because hope was for fools. Hope was for the naive. Hope didn’t change reality, didn’t alter truth.

She swallowed. She had been afraid, in the early days, of hope. Of speaking of a future that was different from the past. She’d been afraid to crawl out of the darkness of herself, and into something that might have been light.

And maybe, for Bakkon, there would be no light. She didn’t know. She only knew that she didn’t want to leave him to die. She was certain that the bag she carried contained the books that were unique. Copies of the others were probably contained in the library Starrante served.

I am tired, Chosen, Bakkon said. I am tired. Do you understand why I have remained here? My kin do not feel isolation as keenly as the other races. There is safety in isolation. But I did not remain here merely to be safe. Nor did I remain here to preserve what I built. I have been waiting. I have been waiting. And you have brought me word that all waiting is in vain.

He spit out webbing, and it remained in the air, as if it had a will or a life of its own. This was my life. This was the life I built. The life I wanted. But it is here and not elsewhere because this was the heart of Ravellon. There is nothing for me if that heart is ash.

I’m not leaving without you.

Then you will die.

So will the books.

She felt a glimmer of something that might be annoyance; it was different from grief, from despair.

Black fire launched itself from the core of the blob on the other side of Bakkon’s defense.

You don’t have to kill them.

They are difficult to kill or they would not have survived our first encounter. And here, a glimmer of amusement, if dark. I was not lying. I cannot leave this space. I will fall into the same madness, and I will become a mindless part of it. I will kill you.

Kaylin shook her head. She drew a long, steadying breath, and began to speak.

The light in the library slowly changed as she did. She started to lower the hand that was pressed into the Wevaran’s side, but changed her mind; it was her last deliberate thought as she gave herself over to the very slight sound she could hear. It was different from the voice she had followed in her desperate attempt to separate Mandoran from the contagion of Shadow; clearer, for one. Clear enough that it was entirely foreign to her.

But it was the sound of the word itself—the sound Bakkon could hear when the word had fully separated itself from her skin. A word, a True Word. It had grown larger at her back, but as she turned toward it, she could see that it was drifting to where she stood.

She repeated, slowly, what she could hear, syllables merging to form one long, complicated word.

---