Page 183 of Cast in Conflict

“And these animals?”

“Do not speak.”

“I see.” The Wevaran chittered again. “No. We do not have words as your friend has words. We do not have words as your skin now does. But the words themselves, like the words on your hand, we speak. We speak them among our own kin—or we did, before the fall.

“It is the language we hear at birth; it is the language we speak—must speak—at death. We speak to each other in this fashion where it is required. But it takes effort, Chosen. It takes will.”

“Why?”

“Because truth carries inherent risks.”

“So do lies.”

“Not in the same fashion. We are responsible for our truths.”

Kaylin felt that people were responsible for their lies as well, but failed to say this.

“But the words themselves are part of our weaving. The words are the reason we can open doors into other worlds, other states; the words are the reason we can survive our explorations. It is not wise to speak often, but in our thoughts, it is those words we utilize in order to understand what we are seeing. It is those words for which we reach.”

“And this word?” she said, coming back to what she felt was the point.

“It is an ending. An ending, a finality.” Chittering. “I find the Barrani tongue so slight I must struggle to find words that might somehow trace the entirety of this meaning. But you said you picked it up on the streets?”

She nodded.

The clicking became more frenetic, and the Wevaran began to move in a circle, counterclockwise.

“Is this a good idea?” Mandoran whispered, in Elantran.

“Where we are?” she replied, in the same fashion. “There are no good ideas here. If we relied on good ideas, we’d be at home.”

The Wevaran trembled and finished with a keening that almost sounded like a distant scream.

The scream echoed in the library; the ground and the shelves began to shake. Kaylin couldn’t speak Wevaran. She couldn’t speak True Words without effort and a lot of serious coaching, none of which she had now. But she needed neither. She knew grief when she heard it.

Mandoran stiffened, retreating in place, as people did when confronted with unexpected grief; he didn’t know what to do; didn’t know what it was safe to do. He did nothing.

Kaylin took her biggest risk. She released Mandoran’s hand and reached out with her left hand, stepping beneath the Wevaran’s raised legs and attempting to avoid what she assumed was his mouth.

She touched him. Beneath her hand she felt hair and chitin and an unexpected warmth. Life, she thought, was warm. Bakkon was alive. He wasn’t Starrante, but Starrante had had to deal with students at the Academia. Kaylin suspected that Bakkon had dealt with no one for a long damn time.

Bakkon froze instantly. All noise—chittering, clicking, even breathing—stopped. Before Kaylin could withdraw her hand, before she could even consider it, two of his arms snapped out and folded around her; it looked, given the angle, as if they should have broken.

Mandoran moved, then; the Wevaran lifted two more of its limbs to block the Barrani. She lifted her right hand and placed it beside the left. She wished that Wevaran bodies were soft and furry; they weren’t. They felt very much like they looked: large, hairy, chitinous insects. With too many eyes, too many legs, and a mouth that seemed much larger when viewed at this distance.

She fought instinctive terror. If she’d intended to give in to visceral fear, she would never have approached him.

Even as she thought it, the marks began to glow—to glow and to rise from her skin. The only mark that remained where it lay was the one on the palm that was now pressed against Wevaran flesh.

“What happened?” she asked, voice soft. She might have been speaking to a foundling.

Bakkon shook. “I do not want to kill you,” he said. Which was promising, in a fashion.

She felt no Shadow in him, which she hadn’t expected. But she hadn’t touched Starrante; she trusted the Arbiter because he had saved Robin, and Robin had not been afraid. Robin, a child, had not been afraid.

Kaylin wished she could be that child. She had to fight fear, here, but she fought it. “I would prefer that you didn’t try to kill me, too.” She had no doubt, given the lack of her familiar, that she’d be dead if he wanted her dead. “Why do you think you might have to?”

Mandoran coughed and Kaylin turned to look, briefly, in his direction. His back was against one of the shelves and his feet were no longer touching the ground; she could see a delicate skein of webbing around his legs and arms. “Possibly not the smartest question to ask right now.”

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