Cast In Secret (21 page)

“Kaylin. Be a Hawk.”

But the Hawk was not in the picture; not yet. Just Kaylin herself, and the dress, and the markings. Without a word, she unbuttoned one bloused sleeve and shoved it up past her elbow. It fell, and she cursed in Aerian – it being somewhat quieter and less likely to be known than Elantran – before she
rolled
it up so it would damn well stay put.

Stroke for stroke, dot for dot, line for line, the marks were the same. She had known they would be, but… she had had to check.

“Why?” the Dragon lord asked, and she realized that she was half muttering to herself. She was flustered.

“You can see,” Master Sabrai told her softly, “why many find Everly disconcerting. Even when the portrait is flattering – which, to be honest, it seldom is.”

Kaylin nodded. It was as if someone had not only walked over her grave, but had come back to do a little song and dance, and to paint graffiti on the headstone.

“Are these – these portraits – are they accurate?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean – Well… you know when Oracles tell you things, they don’t make any sense?”

Lord Sanabalis trod on her foot.

She hastily added, instead of the
ouch
that was appropriate, “I mean, until you know more of the context.” It was lame, but clearly Master Sabrai was accustomed to worse.

“Yes,” he said drily. “I am well aware of what most people think of Oracular information.”

“I don’t – I don’t even own a dress like that one. It’s… It’s not even
decent
.”

“Kaylin – ”

“No, I mean really – I wouldn’t even sleep in something like that!”

“Understood,” Master Sabrai replied, “although you must understand in turn that current fashion and the Oracle Halls are not well acquainted. And to answer your question, Kaylin, the portraits themselves are indicative of some future state, but like the verbal prophecies, they are not always about the present, not always about the future. They are possibilities, but not certainties.”

“But is it significant?”

The boy was painting almost furiously now. It was a small wonder that his hands weren’t shaking, he was moving so quickly. It gave Kaylin hives. It also gave her an excuse to actually look at the
rest
of his face; the eyes had been… hard to look at. His hair was a kind of matted brown, and it was long enough to be pulled back from his face in much the same way hers was – although she thought she saw a paint-brush shoved in the knot that hung slightly to the right of center. His skin as almost translucent; the sunlight that came in from above might add color to the gallery, but it revealed none in Everly.

He wore something that made sackcloth look good, except for the splatters and smears. She thought the color had once been a natural shade of ivory, but now it was a riot, and she imagined that no one – not even the most compulsive of cleaners – could restore it to its original state.

His legs were crossed beneath him. His shoulders, however, were straight. His lips were almost the color of his skin, and his eyes were ringed with dark circles.

“This is what you wanted me to see?” she whispered to Sanabalis.

“No. But I thought you should.”

She nodded.

“How did you know to look – ”

“For the girl?”

She nodded again. She did not mention the Tha’alani boy who had done the watercolor that she had instantly recognized.

“I didn’t,” he replied quietly. “But
all
of the Oracles, even those who are not yet living upon the grounds, or those who are accomplished enough at dealing with the present to now live beyond them, had nightmares, Kaylin.

“And you thought – ”

“Yes. Since they woke, since it began, since
before
it began, Everly has been painting your portrait.”

“And the others?”

“Those who have some drawing skill – and who are not obsessed with it in the way that Everly is – have drawn bodies,” he said quietly. “Or buildings. Many of the buildings would be ones you recognize. I believe you cover much of the city on your rounds.”

“Bodies.”

“Yes. Usually facedown in water. Sometimes trapped too far beneath the surface of it to float.”

“You said many of the buildings?”

“The ones that are mostly standing.” He had joined her now, and his foot was almost pressed against hers.

“That tidal wave you mentioned – ”

“Yes,” Master Sabrai said wearily. “It was not a chance comment.” The Master’s hand covered his eyes for a moment. He started to speak, and the seven syllables that left his mouth were not in a language that Kaylin knew. Not, she would have said, one that she had ever heard before, and given how many she
had
heard in Elantra, it was surprising.

But he stopped himself, and she realized that he had not intended to speak at all. His very Elantran cursing, on the other hand, she had no trouble with.

Lord Sanabalis lifted a hand. “Shall I send for Sigrenne, Master Sabrai?” He spoke slowly and carefully.

“No. No, I’m – fine.”

“We will not detain you further.”

“You will,” he said firmly, “stay for as long as you deem necessary.”

“If you – ”

“I
said I was fine
.”

“As you wish.”

Kaylin watched them both. She had a question or two about what he had started to say, but she
liked
walking, and she hazarded a guess that she wouldn’t be if she asked. But she looked at the painting again, her left sleeve rolled up. “I haven’t changed,” she said. “Or the marks haven’t.”

“No.”

“The dress – ”

“It is not a current fashion, no. But I think it significant in some way.”

“Why?”

“Look away from the markings, Kaylin. Look at the rest of the painting.”

“It’s not finished yet.”

“No.”

She frowned. “It’s – there’s someone else there.”

In pencil, in faint outline, blocked out, waiting for color and brush to give it life.

“Yes. At least one person. Possibly more.”

“You think the dress is ceremonial somehow?”

“I think it probable, yes.”

She swallowed and looked at the dress. It was white, not ivory, but it was edged in gold, and the gold itself was bright and almost metallic. There were words embroidered there, words that seemed in shape and form very similar to the ones that marked her skin. They were smaller, and less detailed, and they did not glow in the way the marks did. Because in Everly’s painting, the marks
were
glowing faintly.

Her hands were outstretched, or at least her arms were; he had not yet painted the hands, and what they held, he therefore kept to himself. But the dress seemed formal for all its simplicity.

“When do you think he’ll finish?” she asked Master Sabrai.

“Soon, if the gods are kind.”

“And if they aren’t?”

“Soon.”

Sanabalis did not step on her foot. “I think – I think I need to see the finished painting.”

“Yes. So Lord Sanabalis has said.”

“But – ”

“But you are not entirely comfortable watching him work?”

It embarrassed her. But it was true – she wasn’t. She had thought to pity him, and she was now ashamed of the impulse; he wasn’t so much a child as a conduit, and Kaylin was not Tha’alani; there were things about herself that she didn’t want anyone else to see.

And she couldn’t control what he
did
see.

“Can we talk to him?”

“You can try,” Master Sabrai said. “But he is not always easily distracted.”

She held her breath for a moment, wanting to ask both Sabrai and Sanabalis to leave. Knowing that it would be the wrong thing to ask. Then she said to Everly, “My name is Kaylin Neya.”

He didn’t appear to notice. His hands continued their manic dance, stopping only to touch palette, to pull some color out of a mixture of two or three, as if by magic, and to transfer that to canvas.

Okay. That was a dead end.

She thought about grabbing his brush, and decided against it because she wasn’t certain that Master Sabrai wouldn’t break her fingers. She thought about it for a moment longer, and then looked at the palette itself. Looked at the canvas, at the area that had been blocked out in some fashion, but still lay shrouded in the near-white of paintless surface. Frowning, she said to Master Sabrai, “Does he often work in pencils?”

“Almost never, although as I have said, he does use them.”

“Where would they be?”

“Behind him, in the box on the floor. He keeps everything in it that might be of use. We take out the food before insects or mice find it,” he added helpfully.

Kaylin moved around Everly, and opened the long, rectangular case. Then she found what she was looking for – a slender stick of gray charcoal. She rose, went to stand beside Everly, and watched him work.

Then she lifted the charcoal and began to draw on the canvas.

She heard the sharp intake of breath from both Sabrai and Sanabalis, but she ignored it. She expected Everly to say something, to
do
something.

But what he did do was not what she’d expected. He set his brush down on his palette, but instead of reacting in outrage, he got down from his stool, and reached for the same box Kaylin had opened. He drew out a long piece of charcoal and came back to his stool, where he clambered up on the seat.

It was the only thing that reminded her that this very disturbing child was, in fact, a child.

But he turned before he touched the canvas, and he looked at her, and his eyes – she almost froze in place. Did freeze. They were the color of water.

He touched Kaylin firmly, grabbing the hand that held the charcoal, and pushing it toward the canvas. She dutifully followed his lead, and began to add something to the work itself.

She didn’t touch the image of herself – couldn’t, really; this close, it would have been like carving your initials in the wooden arms of a throne – say, the Imperial Throne, with the Dragon Emperor
in
it. Instead, she touched the area in the background that hadn’t been touched yet, beginning to draw, awkwardly and self-consciously, extra bodies. Not many. The boy’s hand pushed hers away, but not in anger; he wanted space to add to the work himself, to join her awkward, jerky lines with lines that were smooth and graceful.

But she had been attempting to draw someone Severn’s height, and Everly was drawing something else. Not quite someone, yet, but she thought it would be. And since it wasn’t her, she was fascinated by it.

“Private Neya,” Lord Sanabalis said, in a cool tone of voice.

At the sound of
his
voice, Everly looked up. He didn’t, however, look terrified. He just… looked.

“I believe that what you are doing would be forbidden by the Oracles if it had ever
occurred
to them that someone would
try
.”

“Oh.”

Master Sabrai’s voice joined in, but she was too busy watching Everly’s handiwork to look up.

“It does not disturb Everly,” the Master of the Oracle Hall said in a hushed voice. “Indeed, he seemed to welcome the input. I would not have thought it possible,” he conceded, to the chill of Sanabalis’s voice, “but perhaps because she
is
the subject, she has… some say.”

“Some say in the future?”

“We don’t control what we see, as you well know. Nor do we control what is done with what
we
see. But… ”

Kaylin lifted a hand.

“Private Neya?”

“It’s her,” she said quietly. “He’s drawing her.”

“Her?”

“The girl I saw in the water.”

“So. She is part of his vision.”

Kaylin nodded.

“But you are a larger part.”

“I have to find her. And I think I must because she’s here.”

“Where is here?”

But Kaylin had no answer to that – there was no scenery yet.

Still, it gave her hope, in spite of the dress.

Sanabalis was quiet on the ride back to the Halls of Law. It wasn’t unusual for him to be quiet, but his quiet was usually a wall in the face of Kaylin’s tirades. Now, it was something more contemplative.

She contented herself with silence, as well, thinking about the shock of Everly’s eyes, the certainty of his movements, the sense that he was simply a tool in the hands of… of his vision. Lame, Kaylin.

When they were well past the finer grounds of manors that lay behind sturdy fences and even sturdier guards, Lord Sanabalis looked at her. His eyes were not quite gold, but not yet orange, and they were lidded. He wasn’t angry, then, but he was probably concerned.

“Well, Private,” the Dragon lord said, “what do you think of the Oracles?”

She shrugged almost helplessly. “I don’t think it matters.”

“A good reply. It doesn’t, to them. All of our skepticism, all of our beliefs – they mean nothing to the Oracles. They see what they see.”

“I didn’t ask a question, though.”

“Hmm?”

“You said I should have a question prepared. I didn’t. And I didn’t ask.”

“I rather think you did. But I would not have thought of asking in that particular fashion.”

“Do you think – ”

“The picture is literal? No.”

“But the Dragon – ”

“Yes.” His inner membranes dropped. It made his eyes seem less vulnerable, oddly enough. “He sees what I
am
.”

“Not what you will be?”

“Perhaps he sees that, as well. The Dragons live in the present, and if the present stretches out in all directions, it does not change this fact.”

“We didn’t ask them about water – ”

“No.”

“Or about – ”

“No.”

“Are we going back?”

“Yes.”

“And am I going to carry all of this conversation?”

At that, he smiled. “That would make this day little different from any of the others. But no, Kaylin, I merely muse on what was already there.”

“You’d seen it.”

“I had. I wished to see your reaction.” He paused and added, “The marks on your arms?”

“Matched the painting exactly. I couldn’t check the ones on my back.”

“Good. I note that you did not wear the bracer, in that painting.”