Chapter 23

23

For the first time when she entered a portal, Kaylin listened. Hope sat on her shoulder squawking, his voice soft and blessedly familiar. It wasn't Hope that she struggled to hear. It was the sound of distant voices, voices that had not entered the portal with her, but nonetheless existed in the space.

It was how she'd heard the Ancient. No one else had heard the sound, as if of a tumultuous crowd, but it had pierced her ears, as if it were a weapon; she had stumbled and would have fallen had she not had Severn and Teela with her.

Sometimes she entered portal space without difficulty; most times, it was a nauseating struggle. The last portal had been the first time she could pinpoint a source of that nausea, that pain. She wondered, uneasy now, if something similar had always existed; if she had, while traversing portal space, heard the cries of something in the outlands that didn't quite translate into words.

It was a disturbing thought.

Hope squawked again, and this time she paid attention. "Helen—this space..."

"Yes, dear. I'm sorry."

"It's all portal, isn't it?"

"It is, indeed, all portal. There is no fixed location that terminates it; think of it as a circular loop. I can unbend the circle when necessary, but the ghosts rest more easily here than they do in any other space in the house; I have tried many. They respond to some well, but that response diminishes with time—as if some environments evoke fragments of memory, but not strongly enough to form an anchor."

Kaylin looked at her arm. She couldn't see the marks beneath the sleeve, which meant they weren't glowing. Whatever she was meant to do here, the marks weren't aware of. She'd always used the glow as an indicator.

Helen's hand felt almost like a normal hand; it was cooler and a little bit harder, as if skin had been laid over warm stone. But it meant Kaylin could tighten her grip if necessary. On portal paths, it was always necessary. Almost always. When she held Nightshade's arm, she didn't feel the disorienting dizziness or nausea at all.

Portals were inherently part of the outlands, part of the cloudy, murky, indistinct matter that became, in the hands of beings like Helen, physical rooms, physical objects. Food. Clothing. Anything at all that wasn't alive.

But maybe she'd heard the voice of the dead Ancient because he was so close to the portal she'd entered. She didn't normally hear voices. But what if there were other dead Ancients littered across the outlands?

No, that couldn't be possible. Evanton was aware of the disturbance caused by this Ancient; the garden's elements were aware of it. Surely if there were another case like this one, the Keeper would be just as aware of it? If the garden's entrance was located in Elantra, the responsibility covered the entire world, however big that was.

She shook herself and regretted it. "Hope?"

Squawk. The familiar sounded bored. He was standing on her shoulder, instead of supine; he expected that there could be trouble, but so far hadn't found it. Kaylin, listening, finally heard something that sounded like a voice, or voices—soft, muted, and blurred, which implied a distant crowd, not an individual.

"Are we almost there?"

"We are," Helen replied. "You can hear them?"

Kaylin flinched. "I can hear something . Can you?"

"I can hear what you hear. I cannot hear them on my own—but I can detect them, or I could not house them at all. I think both you and Imelda translate what you hear; your translation is not as perfect as Imelda's, because that is not your gift. If you were not Chosen, I'm not certain you would hear or see anything. Do you understand what you must do?"

"I understand the end result I want: the ghosts become resident on my skin; they take the place of the marks that left me in order to stabilize what Evanton was trying to build."

"They are not marks of the Chosen, dear."

"No, of course not—but the green believed I could bear them on my skin the way I bear the rest of the marks."

"Are you even aware of those marks?"

"Not unless they glow. They feel like a natural part of my skin." Kaylin hesitated, and then added, "I don't expect these ghosts to feel the same. But Evanton said the green thought these words were necessary somehow, and the green felt that I could bear them."

"But not easily."

"No. The green thought I'd feel the weight. But it means Mrs. Erickson won't be carrying them; she'll get a break."

"How much of a break, if Evanton feels her presence is essential?"

It was a fair point. She almost said as much, but the sounds she had heard grew louder, as if they were a real crowd and she'd drawn close enough to hear individual voices. Crowd? Mob, maybe; the sounds clashed, as if in argument, although other voices were raised that seemed distinct—a scream, a shout, a plea. None of these resolved into intelligible words. Had she been Mrs. Erickson, they would have; she could have walked into the crowd, raising her hands, and listening to every single voice as if each had value, each had merit.

Mrs. Erickson was the least judgmental person Kaylin had ever met. Maybe that was why the dead found comfort in her: she could see them, she could speak to them, and she could listen . Kaylin didn't expect to understand other people. She didn't expect them to understand her, either, if she was being fair.

It didn't occur to Mrs. Erickson that she couldn't. Maybe because, when she faced the dead, she understood the pain of being able to see the world in all its complexity, but remaining unseen, unheard. Maybe all she wanted to offer them was the comfort of finally having someone who could see them and hear them; to confirm that they still existed, that they had once lived.

There was peace in that.

Kaylin couldn't offer it. She understood its value but understood her own limitations. She wasn't aware of any time in her life that she'd offered comfort successfully. She froze.

She could think of one time. One time, when she, who was powerless, had found children who had even less power. She'd protected them. They'd found comfort in her.

And she didn't want to think about them here.

She swallowed. She'd accepted those deaths. She'd made peace with them, inasmuch as she could. Why did they come back, time and again, to make a lie of acceptance?

"Because you loved them," Helen said, her voice very soft.

"That didn't do them any good."

"Yes, it did. Be careful, Kaylin. If you only remember the pain, if you only remember the end, nothing you ever did that helped counts. You did help them. They did love you. Had they died in a wagon accident, you wouldn't have assumed that all their life with you was terrible for them."

"That's not how they died. That's not why they died. If Severn hadn't killed them, they would have died anyway—and it would have been a terrible death. Neither would have happened if we'd never met."

Hope squawked up a storm.

"Right." She swallowed. "Let's get back to these ghosts."

"Yes, dear. I don't think yours are haunting you. I'm sure if they were, Mrs. Erickson would have let you know."

She'd certainly done that for Bellusdeo, and Bellusdeo's life hadn't improved for it. Kaylin exhaled; she was being unfair. Closing her eyes, she returned to listening. Returned, as she did, to thinking about Mrs. Erickson, and what she offered the panicked, restless dead.

As she did, she saw the marks on her arms begin to glow. Their light could be seen clearly through the sleeves of the green's dress, but the emerald hue deepened the color of the green without appreciably changing the ivory that edged it. The color of the flower in Azoria's painting of Mrs. Erickson and her family had been a bright, yet simultaneously sickly green; this green had a depth of color that seemed the opposite of that green, while still somehow being in the same spectrum.

It was warm. The marks were warm, not hot; she felt them against her skin as summer shade. Summer shade in the heart of the green, where insects weren't biting her and the summer heat wasn't slowly burning her skin. It was almost peaceful to look at the marks, and she'd never felt that before.

"No."

"But I didn't feel the green was peaceful when I was actually in it," Kaylin pointed out.

"No? I admit I knew very little about the green, and very little about the Keeper. The green was not my concern, although my first master studied it for some time."

"Was he anything like Azoria?"

"He was much, much closer to Azoria's personality than to yours, certainly. You would not have cared for him." Helen smiled. "I loathed him myself."

Kaylin glanced at her home's Avatar. Helen was usually very gentle, and she responded to kindness; it was why she'd taken so instantly to Mrs. Erickson. What must it have been like to be forced to obey a man she hated?

"Terrible," Helen replied. "You are thinking it was like slavery. It was exactly that. But, Kaylin, if you desired it, you, too, could command me. What I destroyed was the part of my internal composition that gave me no choice in my master. I did not wish to ever again obey commands that viscerally disgusted me."

"What did he know about the green?"

"It was wild; it was untamed. In its folds, the passage of time could markedly slow or markedly increase. He knew of the weapon the green guarded; he knew the green decided the weapon's wielder. He had been offered a great deal to determine where the weapon was, or failing that, how its wielder was decided."

"I'm guessing he never found an answer."

"That would be correct. Long before he could theorize one, he was ejected from the green; the Wardens would not allow him to pass."

"Do you think the green was aware of him?"

"I assume so—as I said, I knew very little about it. But, Kaylin, I am learning more even as we speak. If I am not standing in the green—and I cannot, given I cannot leave the house metaphorically speaking—you are with the green now; I can feel some shift in the essential nature of the mana from which every part of my structure is drawn. It is why, I think, you were given the dress."

"I wasn't given the dress; I lost all my regular clothing to it."

"Do you feel it was unnecessary?"

"No. No, I don't. I'm not great with unexplained, instant changes. They set my teeth on edge. But if the green can somehow help me relieve Mrs. Erickson of these particular dead, I'll consider it a blessing, and I'll try to be appropriately thankful."

"If you cannot manage that," Helen said, "be appropriately respectful when you discuss the dress; I believe your current attitude might offend the Barrani."

Kaylin doubted it because most of the Barrani present were part of the cohort, who had no reason to love the green.

"I don't suppose you could tell me how to be like Mrs. Erickson?"

"You are Kaylin; she is Imelda. No, I don't think I can—nor do I think you should be. But if you mean can I tell you how to interact with the dead as Mrs. Erickson does, perhaps. Mrs. Erickson reacts to people in the same fashion. Only if they harm her, or harm people she cares about, does she retreat—but she starts in the same way with everyone: she listens."

"I'm listening to them," Kaylin replied. "I mean, I'm trying."

"Your head is full of thoughts that have nothing to do with the ghosts."

"And hers isn't?"

"Not when she speaks with them, no. Most people think of themselves—not necessarily in an avaricious way, but perhaps a reflexive one. They try to match the experiences and emotions of others with those they themselves have experienced. If they can find a match, they feel sympathy or empathy. Sometimes they overlay their own fears on the experiences of others: fear of abandonment, fear of loss. If another person experiences losses that they fear, they feel a very deep sympathy.

"This is what you do, when you are trying to understand others; you reach for your understanding of yourself first."

Kaylin nodded.

"This does not work well when the experience is obscured by simple differences: language, for one. Hierarchical differences. Social differences. Monetary differences. Racial differences. People are, internally, very similar, but the externals exert great influence, and they build very real walls.

"You sympathize with people who live in the fiefs because of your terrible experiences living there; you sympathize with people who live in the warrens because you assume your experiences are similar. In my opinion, they very much are. There is nothing wrong with what you are doing; there is nothing wrong with the initial approach.

"Those people live their own lives; their lives are not yours. In some small way, they are your responsibility as a Hawk—but you do not feel they are your burden to bear, having burdens enough of your own.

"But your friendship with Teela and Tain has expanded your sense of sympathy; it has broken down the walls that would otherwise separate you, because you share common ground in your chosen profession. Approaching Teela's experience has made you more aware that even those in power suffer great loss. She will never starve, unless she chooses to do so for inexplicable reasons of her own; she will never freeze to death for lack of shelter in the winter. She will never be bothered by Ferals.

"But none of this mattered to Teela; she lost her mother at her father's hand; she lost her father at her own. She lost her only friends at a very young age—and it was only on your trip to the West March that she finally found them again. You understand her attachment to her friends. You understand far more of her fears than you did when you first met her."

Kaylin nodded. When she'd first met Teela, she'd thought the Barrani Hawk was above something as petty as fear.

"Your understanding of Teela is based on both her experiences and your own. But your understanding of these dead can't be achieved in the same way."

"But Mrs. Erickson's can."

"Mrs. Erickson looks only at what is in front of her. She is not attempting to find resonance with her prior experience; when she does, she does so almost by accident. She listens and looks at the person to whom she is listening, and her listening is a powerful force in and of itself. There are things I would speak of to Imelda that I would not speak of to anyone else I have ever met.

"She doesn't expect to understand immediately. She doesn't expect to know; she expects only to learn. If she thinks of herself at all, it is always secondary, and it is invariably what can I do to help? I think, had she not been what she is, she might have developed more normally; she would have made friends as a child, made enemies as a child, been hurt, and caused pain. It's what living people do.

"But other children were wary of her, or afraid of her, or worse, disgusted by her attention seeking—for that is how her ability was seen. She missed those interactions. She had friends, all dead, who never aged as she aged. She loved them, and I do not doubt that they loved her.

"She misses them, even now; she will often think Jamal would love this , and then catch herself. I have no doubt she is correct, but I am not Jamal."

"No one else is."

Helen nodded. "She understands that, and she would never attempt to replace him; it would put an unreasonable burden on the people with whom she is newly acquainted." Helen's smile deepened. "You cannot be Mrs. Erickson; I don't suggest you try."

"Would you have accepted her as your tenant if you'd met her before me?"

"No, although I would have offered her a home."

This surprised Kaylin.

"She is too old, Kaylin, and I am weary of burying my tenants; I wish not to lose one for decades."

Kaylin's marks now looked like gems; the light in this odd space was bright only when it was caught and held by the marks. She wondered if she would lose them all, this time. Once, that thought would have filled her with joy. Now, she felt ambivalent. How had things changed so much in so short a time?

She shook her head. The voices of the ghosts had not resolved into any language she could understand, but the tone was familiar. She wanted the granularity of language, but Helen was right: she wanted clarity because misunderstandings had led to injury and death in her childhood. She was not a child. She no longer lived in the fiefs.

She lifted her hands—or one of them. "Helen, I think I need both of my hands."

Helen hesitated. She then let go.

Kaylin raised both of her hands, palms up. She wanted to close her eyes to get rid of visual noise but kept them open because she could now see Mrs. Erickson's ghosts.

They had appeared as words, as smoky mirages in the shape of words, when she had first managed to see them. She wished she could see them as Mrs. Erickson did, but Helen was right: she was Kaylin Neya, not Imelda Erickson, and there was no point regretting the difference. If she had to build a bridge, she'd need one that she could cross.

In this space, the ghostly words reflected the marks on her arms. The new additions were paler, but they seemed a shade of jade green, and even thinking that, she could see surfaces almost harden in place across the length of the dashes, the moving dots, the strokes, vertical and horizontal, that comprised their complicated shapes. They weren't like her marks; her marks seemed almost rudimentary in comparison, although the emerald hue made them seem more solid. Where her marks were edged in ivory, that ivory now looked like a setting, an organic version of a blend between gold and platinum. To her, however, they felt like cool patches of skin.

She stood as the ghostly words began to move toward her, their voices rising and falling as if in question. "I'm Kaylin," she said, uncertain if they would hear or register her words at all. They were far more solid now than they had ever been. She wondered if Helen could see them on her own.

Hope squawked; she had almost forgotten he was standing on her shoulder.

The words fell silent, but at least they didn't move away. She couldn't tell if they were listening to Hope or waiting for her to speak; she guessed the former. But she kept her hands open and palms up, although she lowered them slightly as she approached the ghosts.

How did language die? In the normal world, a language was considered dead or lost if people ceased to speak it.

These words looked, in shape and form, as if they were True Words. Could parts of a language die? Could only parts be lost, their meaning forgotten, their use extinguished? She wasn't a scholar and had no desire to ever be one—but she knew at least one person who'd be delighted to answer. She'd ask Serralyn later—she wasn't even certain the Barrani student had come home yet.

But the words remained where they were as she slid into their center; she stood, in the green's dress, her marks like jewels across the whole of her body. She reached out and touched the first word; felt it shiver against her palm. She froze, waiting until the tremor subsided, as if that tremor were fear and anxiety expressed in a fashion she could understand.

She couldn't speak to these words, but she could touch them; she hadn't expected that. Understood on some fundamental level that it was due to the will of the green. The word beneath her hand stilled, and this time, she lifted a second hand to touch the surface of one long, diagonal stroke. It was cool to the touch but remained solid. Where her own marks were edged in ivory, these words were edged in mist or smoke; neither interfered with sensation or touch.

She swallowed. Now what? The words weren't small; they were almost her height, and all were greater in width, given the way they were drawn. She could probably manage to lift one, but she certainly couldn't gather them up and carry them all.

Mrs. Erickson had, somehow. A distinct image of the old woman, her hands gently cupped before her, flashed past. Kaylin looked at her hands as they rested against the surface of one word and gave up on trying to do what Mrs. Erickson had done. But it was difficult.

Mrs. Erickson probably didn't make comparisons the way Kaylin did. She didn't have a sliding scale of worth, of worthiness. At the moment, Kaylin felt useless because she was comparing herself to someone else. That had to stop. Yes, Mrs. Erickson could do better, but better didn't matter.

Kaylin could lift the word, or at least she could move it; it was heavier than she felt a ghost should be, but definitely lighter than a carved jade figure of its size. The sleeves of this stupid dress didn't help; they began to move, becoming almost entangled in the components of the word she now carried.

Voices rose again, but they were muted, hushed; they didn't seem to contain fear or anxiety. This time, the words felt far more like a harmony of sound than the cacophony of a crowd, as if they were all friends discussing the same thing. What would Mrs. Erickson have heard?

No, she was doing it again. She could not hear what Mrs. Erickson heard. She could hear what Kaylin Neya heard. And she could try not to curse as she attempted to disentangle these damn sleeves.

Hope bit her ear, not hard enough to draw blood, but certainly hard enough to register as a criticism. She froze, and then stopped attempting to free the long, trailing sleeves. She watched instead. Her arms weren't pulled forward; the sleeves seemed to exist as a very loosely connected attachment.

As she watched, her marks grew steadily brighter. It was the edges; the hearts of the forms remained a deep, almost endless green. She was looking at those marks when the ghosts began to dwindle in size. As they grew smaller, the cloth entangled a greater portion of their shape, one sleeve spreading to wind itself around words she hadn't yet touched.

She could hear whispers now; whispers of syllables that felt familiar enough that she should understand them—but didn't. That was how she had always experienced spoken True Words. The ghosts were not the only words she now heard. She could hear the marks of the Chosen, their sound as much a whisper as that of the dead words, the lost words—the sentient words that had possessed a living Dragon.

Mrs. Erickson could comfort them. Kaylin could not. But she could offer them a place—just as she'd offered Bellusdeo, the cohort, and Mrs. Erickson herself a home. She did close her eyes then. Closed them so she could concentrate on both the sounds of the marks that were hers and the words that would be hers for a time.

She was aware of the moment the first of the words touched her skin—drawn there by the sleeves of the dress, by the will of the green. She forced herself not to freeze or shudder; the words were cold . There was a kind of cold that was painful, it felt almost like heat. The dead words were that kind of cold.

She knew when each word touched her skin, because each was cold in the same fashion; they were almost painful. Almost.

Hope squawked, and she nodded; she opened her eyes. The marks of the Chosen were clearest when she looked at them with closed eyes, but the ghostly words couldn't be seen in the same way. They now lay against her skin, jade green and white-edged; they weren't flat the way the marks were; they were slightly raised and humming.

Only when each of them was mounted against her arms did her sleeves fall once again into their correct position.

These words were like her friends in some fashion. She'd given the cohort a place to live, and they'd lived with Helen more or less happily—and way more safely—than they might have lived elsewhere. But Serralyn was gone now; Valliant had gone with her. Sedarias was here, but if she wished to fully claim her birthright, she'd have to maintain a residence in the High Halls. Bellusdeo, the first roommate, had also moved out, to a sentient building of her own, whose sole purpose resonated strongly with Bellusdeo's desire for bloody vengeance.

Kaylin missed the three who had moved on. She was happy to have them visit. But they had their own lives, and they had to live them; they couldn't just remain here so Kaylin wouldn't feel abandoned.

These words had also been Helen's guests. But they had a place to go, a life beyond Helen's confines. Kaylin couldn't keep them—and given how much they hurt, this was a good thing—but she could ease their burden for as long as they required it.

"Very good," Helen said. "I don't think you should tarry. I don't think you'll be able to carry them for long without collapsing."

"They're not heavy," Kaylin said. "Just...really, really cold."

Helen nodded. "Cold can kill, as you are well aware. I do not believe they will kill you intentionally—not when the link to the green is so strong. But they are a danger to you, and you would do well to deliver them as quickly as possible."

"To where?"

"I believe your friends are in the parlor asking just that question," Helen replied.