Page 94 of Cast in Atonement

She swallowed and nodded. “The paintings Azoria made—the paintings Kaylin and Terrano examined in the archives of the High Halls—were improved on in Azoria’s home. She had an entirely separate lab and a series of smaller, research-dependent libraries housed around a large room for practical experiments.”

“You found more of her paintings.”

“We found more of her paintings in various stages; we assumed that they were not yet complete.”

“Did Bakkon note anything unusual?”

“He said the halls outside of her personal research area were very much like the birthing halls of his memory—not in shape, but in feel, in the density of...something. I couldn’t sense it; Terrano couldn’t see it. I’m not sure if it’s something specifically related to Wevaran. But he felt that these halls had been created to serve, in some fashion, a similar purpose. They weren’t exact, but Azoria was Barrani; she didn’t understand the whole of Wevaran birth.

“Had she access by that time to Barrani—or Dragons, or Ancestors—Bakkon might have had a better sense of what she meant to do. He therefore pinpoints the discovery of the dead Ancient as the probable point at which she abandoned the research she had obviously attempted to enact with regard to the Wevaran names.

“But Bakkon feels it quite possible that she intended to take Barrani True Names, and somehow introduce them into the birthing canal environment as a way of increasing the stature and power of her own name.”

“That is not possible,” Starrante said, clicking, his visible eyes red.

“Nothing about Azoria depended on possible. We didn’t have time to go through her research materials with any deliberate care. I did attempt to remove one journal for future study.”

“Attempt?”

“The book would not leave the area. It was teleported back to its original resting place. We could read the books, move the books, reorganize the journals—but we couldn’t remove them.” She hesitated and then added, “I’m not sure you’ll find any of them in the library, no matter how carefully you look. She wasn’t worried about her knowledge dying with her—I think she was arrogant enough to believe she was never going to die.

“She was clearly concerned that the research might be stolen.” Serralyn exhaled. “In the lab, I said we found unfinished paintings. In some central images existed, and in some cases sketches hadn’t been transferred to a painted medium. There were paintings of various Barrani.” Her tone was off.

It was Kaylin who picked up the questioning, although she led with a statement. “You recognized some of the Barrani. Or at least one.”

Again, Serralyn hesitated before nodding. “You’d recognize her if you saw the painting. It wasn’t finished, but it was closest to my eye—and the background of the painting, rather than a sitting room or a bench or grand scenery, was... I think you’d recognize it. The Barrani woman had white hair.”

“The Consort.”

Serralyn nodded.

“But the Consort of her time wasn’t the Consort of ours—and I haven’t heard that white hair is necessary. Very, very few of the Barrani have white hair.”

Serralyn nodded again.

“Which meant that she had seen the current Consort, although technically she was dead and her line expunged and she couldn’t therefore be in the High Halls. Was there any indication that she’d been working with or through Barrani who could legitimately enter the High Halls?”

“The occupants of the High Halls aren’t confined to lords,” Mandoran said. “Any of the powerful will have aides and servants, and refusing those people entry would cause a ruckus—I mean, the lords would then have to do things themselves, right? Until recently, the interior of the High Halls was focused entirely on the Shadow at the heart of the Test of Name. It’s possible she could have entered as a servant and passed through undetected.

“As far as the High Halls knew, she was—along with all of Berranin—dead. I don’t think she could accomplish the same thing now. Or Terrano doesn’t. And given what her crime was, the High Halls would be far more guarded. The High Halls doesn’t care if we assassinate each other—it’s a racial pastime.” This last was said with bitterness. “They’re a big believer in survival of the fittest.”

Kaylin held up a hand. “None of that—painting, Consort, High Halls—has anything to do with the current difficulty, at least on the surface. Did she write what she was trying to do at the end?”

“I think it highly likely,” Serralyn replied. “But we didn’t have time to examine her library. We were noting where we’d left off, and intended to return to it. But I heard that the Keeper had somehow become stuck to or trapped by Azoria’s painting. Bakkon was alarmed. He wanted to go to the Keeper. But before we got there, we got Mandoran’s panicked demand that we evacuate as soon as possible. And when we had, we got the news that neither Terrano nor the Keeper had made it out.”

“I’m not sure we can get to the research area without entering the rest of the manse.”

Serralyn cleared her throat. “Bakkon believes, if we can open the door again, we can. He...left strategically placed bits of webbing to which he could create a portal.”

“What catches my notice,” Arbiter Androsse said, “is Mrs. Erickson herself. It is clear to me that she was the crown jewel in Azoria’s plans. Azoria’s failure to understand that a handful of mortal decades takes a deadly toll on mortals is understandable. But Mrs. Erickson is still alive, and if those plans did not come to fruition, understanding those plans may reveal more about the mortal’s powers.”

Kavallac was orange-eyed. “It was to determine her potential powers that we first began our research, but I am not at all certain, given the length of a mortal life, that this is now a safe or even fruitful endeavor.”

Androsse nodded. “What we need to ascertain is the state—and power—of a theoretically dead Ancient. A mortal’s power is trivial in comparison.”

Kaylin sat on her knee-jerk annoyance.

Starrante, however, disagreed. “We cannot simply discard the question of Mrs. Erickson. Nor can we discard the implications of the spells Azoria wove to somehow capture or possess her. They are woven into the research on the dead Ancient, the creation of the interior of her manor, the existence of the paintings themselves. It is clear to me, from things Terrano has discovered, that those paintings—for Mrs. Erickson—were rooted in some fashion in the distant green of the West March, one of the centers of the powers of the Ancient world. It was not disrupted when Ravellon fell; nor was it lost to us, as so much of that world and its history has been.

---