Yes. And Kaylin, I believe the conspiracy that aided Terrano and his friends in their bid to escape the Hallionne the first time must still be active. Their goals at the time were unclear, but we can assume that their goals and the goals of the cohort overlapped. But they will now have some experience— I know. They might have learned from their mistakes.
Yes. I am uncertain as to what they might have learned. Regardless, if the Consort does arrive, she will arrive at the portal gates.
*
“I don’t think I’ve heard you swear quite so much. Ever.”
“Lirienne thinks the Consort is coming by the portal paths.”
“The portal paths on which the cohort disappeared?”
“The same.” Even as she spoke, the ground—which had resembled stone beneath both of their feet—began to soften; the air thickened. “Is something on fire? Alsanis?”
“No. Alsanis is just upset.” That was Terrano. Kaylin couldn’t see him. “I’ve come back for the Shadow. What did you call him?”
“Spike. He didn’t seem to notice.”
“I noticed,” Spike said. His voice was diffuse now, the syllables elongated; they no longer seemed to come from the spiky, silvered ball.
“I meant you weren’t offended.”
A series of clicks that might have been insects talking came from the ball. Terrano laughed. “He doesn’t understand what you mean by offended. You can try explaining it. I’m not going to.”
“Oh?” Bellusdeo asked.
“He’ll ask what angry is. Or what fear is. It’s going to be explanations all the way down, and I don’t have the patience.”
“Or skill,” the Dragon muttered. She was visible, but sort of visually smeared. Kaylin lifted her hands to rub her eyes. It seemed that smoke—or mist—was creeping up from the ground in a way that obscured vision.
“Unlike the rest of you,” Terrano snapped, “I don’t spend my time doing nothing but pointless, boring, political talk!”
“That’s what your friends are going to be doing when they arrive in Elantra.”
Terrano shrieked in frustration. It reminded Kaylin of the sound Mandoran made when he got stuck in walls. The air grew more foggy as they began their descent.
“Bellusdeo?”
“Here.”
“Do you see a lot of fog?”
“It seems more like smoke, to me—but yes, it’s interfering with visibility.”
Kaylin considered asking the Dragon to go back up the stairs, but decided against it; the stairs didn’t seem particularly fixed in either form or shape. Whatever Alsanis was doing, he was doing in a rush.
“I do not see this smoke,” Spike said. Terrano was unwilling to explain offended to Spike, but had no trouble with smoke.
“What do you see?”
“The atmosphere of the area which you are entering is not fully compatible with your species. This may cause difficulties with your perception of the space.”
Kaylin ground to a halt. “My species? Or our species?”
He whirred a bit and then said, “You are human and Dragon. This area is not compatible with your kind.”
“And him?”
“It’s not a problem for me,” Terrano replied.
“What exactly is his species?”
Spike whirred. She thought there were more sounds in it, but they didn’t resolve into anything like language, at least not the languages she knew. “Alsanis?”
“Terrano has gone ahead,” the Hallionne replied. “But there is an instability in the portal room, and I do not believe it will be possible to entirely contain its appearance. Please accept my apologies for the discomfort, Lord Kaylin.”
“Will he help us?” Bellusdeo asked, her voice a rumble of sound.
“I am certain he will try.”
The familiar squawked loudly, which was a warning. It wasn’t a timely warning. The step on which Kaylin had leapt ceased to exist just as her left foot hit it.
*
Bellusdeo caught her before the ground—if there was ground—could. Gold-tinted claws grabbed both of her arms, and Kaylin, who could climb up the side of a building with a little bit of luck and equipment, managed—with effort—to twist her way up to the Dragon’s back. Spike, on the other hand, didn’t require rescue. If he no longer had wings, or what looked like wings, he seemed immune to simple things like gravity. He floated alongside Kaylin.
“I am going to be really displeased if I hit ceiling or walls,” the gold Dragon said. She roared. In the depths of whatever it was that lay beneath her feet, something answered. This did not fill Kaylin with anything remotely resembling hope.
“Are you all right? Nothing’s injured?”
“Well, I’m not bored.”
“Where’s Spike?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t see him.”
Kaylin shrieked and clung for dear life as the Dragon veered to the side. “Concentrate on driving—I’ll look!”
*
Down was a long way away. Kaylin half doubted they would ever reach it; it felt as if they had been in flight for a long time. But the smoke—or fog, as there didn’t seem to be a fire—that had made visibility so terrible seemed to clear as they descended. Beneath the Dragon, she could see what appeared to be ground.
It was, sadly, ground covered in trees.
A cursory glance at those trees didn’t immediately surrender a clearing, and while the trees probably didn’t pose a problem for Dragons, they weren’t going to do Kaylin any good. She tightened her legs and clenched her jaw as Bellusdeo buzzed the tree tops, but the Dragon rose again, searching for somewhere convenient to land.
She settled, in the end, for inconvenient; the trees opened up around a lake, and the lake was possessed of something that might have been shore—if it had been longer and less rocky. Less inconvenient became hazardous as the rocks rose to impede the Dragon’s skidding halt.
Bellusdeo corrected course and pushed up off the ground before impact, but it was close.
Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!
“You could try to be a little helpful!” Terrano shouted. A quick scan of the lake failed to expose his presence, and his voice seemed to be coming from the rocks.
“I think he wants us to stop right in front of the...rocks,” Kaylin told the Dragon, who was now hovering. Hovering made the landing far easier, and she did as Kaylin suggested.
The rocks immediately fell, and Terrano climbed out of them, looking distinctly battered. “Honestly, the two of you. Could you not hear me screaming?”
“We heard the last bit,” Kaylin said, before Bellusdeo could reply; Terrano looked frazzled enough that the inevitable sarcasm or condescension wasn’t going to help the situation any. “What are you doing?”
“We’re in trouble,” he replied.
“Alsanis?”
“That’s part of the trouble. He’s not here. Or rather, we’re not there anymore.”
Severn?
Silence.
Kaylin swore.
*
The good news, such as it was, was that they were materially unharmed. The bad news? They appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. A kind of forest nowhere that reminded Kaylin of an insect-filled walk overland to the West March.
“Don’t touch that,” Terrano snapped. Since Kaylin hadn’t moved, she felt this unfair. “It’s not actually water.”
“And the rocks?”
“Not rocks, either.”
“So...this is like the portal paths.”
He raised a brow at her, which conversely made him look younger than he usually did.
“The portal paths—at least at inception—could look like anything. The first time I walked the portal pathways, I entered a path that mimicked forest perfectly.” Until it hadn’t.