Page 48 of Cast in Conflict

“Lannagaros, or, in your case, the chancellor, and no, not immediately. I have nothing to report yet.”

“Yet?”

Bellusdeo turned down the street that led from Tiamaris to the Academia, where she said she wasn’t going. “I have one potential meeting today, possibly two if the first meeting is brief.”

“When you say potential, do you mean you have an appointment?”

The Dragon snorted. With smoke. “You were curious about one of the fiefs when we did our brief pass through it. We are going to that fief in an attempt to speak with the man who owns the Tower with the...happy face adornment that can be seen from the air.”

Durant. Durant was the name of the fief, and therefore the name of the current fieflord. That was the sum total of what Kaylin knew about the fief, that and the fact that the buildings on the Ravellon border were in decent repair. In Nightshade, decent repair would have meant occupied; she was less certain about Durant.

Durant bordered the Ablayne for a small fraction of its Elantra-facing border length; most of Durant was walled off on the Elantra-facing border. Bellusdeo hadn’t been all that concerned about the Elantra border; Kaylin, a Hawk, paid more attention. The wrong activities near the borders of the city fell squarely into the Hawks’ domain.

But if things went to hell, it would be a far larger problem than the Hawks were created to handle. The Towers weren’t the Halls of Law, but they were absolutely necessary. On this, both Kaylin and Bellusdeo could agree.

“You use the Academia as a pass-through now?”

“It seems safest. I am highly concerned with the possible effects of Shadow on its current, solid form; Lannagaros is aware that it might become an issue. The Academia is not under the remit of the Towers, but is somehow engaged with them or linked to them. It is the reason that I have agreed to undertake these...scouting missions for Lannagaros.”

“What does Killian think?”

“He agrees that it could be a possible concern. As a sentient building, he accrues knowledge from my visits, and he has also been encouraging. My discussions with Arbiter Starrante have been inconclusive. His racial ability—the creation of portals—is, we all believe, a possible danger or weakness, but he would not do anything to endanger the Academia now. In the future, there may be more experimentation, but Starrante is not necessarily eager to do so.”

“So the Academia is nothing like the Arcanum.”

“Nothing at all like the Arcanum. Even were it once, Lannagaros is chancellor. Here,” she added, for no reason that Kaylin could see. “This is the Durant boundary.”

As they’d been walking through streets that looked entirely normal—if in very solid repair—Kaylin was a bit surprised. “So the streets never change anymore?”

“They don’t. It’s been suggested that it would be of use if the prior border zone effects could—in a much smaller area—be deliberately deployed. Lannagaros is against this,” she added. “His current drive is to open the Academia to students. The border zone made this all but impossible, and until the Academia is much more established...” Bellusdeo shrugged. It was clearly not the choice she would have made, but she understood and grudgingly accepted it.

Kaylin felt no difference in the streets—or no immediate difference—when she crossed what Bellusdeo had labeled a border. Like borders in the city proper, it was a thing of paper and theory for most of the people who traversed the city streets. Not that the paper wasn’t important, because laws cropped up around such papers, but it didn’t materially affect most of the citizens.

As they entered Durant, conversation stopped. Severn was far more alert, as was Maggaron. Bellusdeo wasn’t, but she didn’t really have to be—nothing that the streets naturally produced was likely to harm a Dragon.

Hope, draped across Kaylin’s shoulders, shifted position, moving slowly. He, too, was alert in a fashion, but he wasn’t alarmed. Not yet.

Kaylin resented Nightshade as she looked through these streets. Although none of the buildings here were new, and none as solid as the newly revealed buildings that surrounded the Academia, they were in decent repair.

“Repairs,” Bellusdeo said, intuiting Kaylin’s reaction from her expression, “cost money. You are employed as a Hawk. What similar employ exists in Nightshade?”

Kaylin had no answer.

No, Nightshade said. The answers are not simple.

You didn’t care.

I accepted the responsibility of stewarding the borders; I did not accept responsible for the citizens.

Is this how you would have ruled your own family?

She felt his amusement. Hated it. Wondered how Annarion would have felt.

He would feel as you feel, Nightshade replied, as you well know.

Where are you?

I am, oddly enough, in the Academia. I have an appointment with the chancellor in less than an hour.

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