He wasn’t certain how long the two conferred. No clock marked the passage of time, and he had no idea what Random wanted to convey to Ybelline. The Oracle didn’t fear the Tha’alani; she had invited Ybelline in.
He had come here seeking information. He had come to ask her if she remembered the Tha’alani visitors—but that question had already been answered by the style of her greeting. What else had he wanted to know? What they had asked. What she had answered. What they had talked about.
And she had made the appointment to speak with Severn and Ybelline before either had thought to ask to interview her. She had had a vision of her own that had led to this day. They hadn’t come here to ask her for an oracle. They weren’t here to ask her for a glimpse of their future.
Severn watched the door and focused on the questions he’d intended to ask when he’d made the request to visit these halls. He’d lost ground, lost focus, when he’d found out that Random’s appointment had already existed for weeks, and he recovered it in the silence.
He accepted that part of the reason he’d wanted to speak with Random was to avoid speaking with Ybelline. Not that he feared her—but he feared for her, now. The answers she’d left the Halls of Law to seek had caused a kind of grim terror in her. Outsiders like Severn—or the criminals she was sent to “interview”—were sources of dangerous instability, dangerous insanity. But outsiders could not do what had been done to the memories of the three children.
Severn was surprised that the early memories existed at all; had he somehow wanted to bury information about them, he would have destroyed them.
But that, he thought, would be difficult. Tha’alani lives were so intricately entwined in the Tha’alaan, he wasn’t certain what would happen to those who’d already experienced the events, or who had been part of the lives of the three children. He didn’t understand what three children had discovered on that day—without being aware of the discovery—that led to the truncation of their memories.
He wasn’t even certain how it could be done. Ybelline had had suspicions; she had kept them to herself, but she hadn’t hidden the growing dread those suspicions caused. She had gone to the Tha’alanari.
No, he thought, knowing this was wrong. She had gone to the castelord.
Random’s tears were silent tears; they fell only when she blinked. Her expression, however, implied that if there was sorrow in those tears, there was also a tremulous peace. Ybelline did not cry.
Severn almost wanted to be part of their communion. He had wasted very little of his life or life’s thoughts on envy, but allowed a hint of it to color his thoughts now. What must it be like to be Ybelline Rabon? What must it be like to be able to offer comfort and peace to a stranger?
And if you could offer those things to a stranger, what might you offer someone you loved?
He shook his head to clear it. The thoughts were unwelcome; they led nowhere useful.
He heard the movement of a chair, felt the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Wasn’t certain until he turned whose hand it had been. Ybelline’s. “Random wishes to speak to you now.”
“She must know you could answer my questions.”
“I don’t know. I had different questions than you had, and perhaps my questions required different answers. I cannot fully describe at least two of the answers.”
“Did you understand them?”
“Only because I was with...with... Random. Random feels that the information may be important. She believes that you might be better able to find words to express it more clearly.”
“Why me?”
“The Tha’alani rely too much on our native ability; we have never been forced to rely on language to deliver difficult concepts. You have had the advantage of words as communication.”
“Is that why she wanted me?”
Ybelline shook her head.
Ybelline moved the chair with her name on it out of the way, and replaced it carefully with Severn’s chair. Random nodded, her eyes still reddened, her nose running slightly. He had no handkerchief to offer, but she didn’t appear to need one. She had long sleeves, after all.
To Severn’s surprise, Ybelline now fetched a small card table; she placed it in front of Random, made sure all four of its legs were firmly on the ground, and then went to the shelves that contained the various products of Random’s attempt to capture what she could see.
She returned to the table with three of these items and placed them in front of Random. Random no longer appeared to see Ybelline. She didn’t appear to be aware of Severn, either. She was looking at the items on the table. Her frown was mercurial, her brows drawing in and rising, her lips twitching without landing on any specific expression.
“She asked for these,” Ybelline said, when Severn glanced at her.
“She seems to think one is missing.”
Ybelline nodded. “Now, be careful. You can speak—she won’t hear you—but touch nothing on this table until she speaks. I mean, speaks sentences that you can understand. She said she babbles when she works. Sometimes she sings. Sometimes she screeches or makes animal noises, apparently on purpose. If she screams—” Ybelline swallowed.
“If she screams, I can touch her?”
Ybelline shook her head. “No. But if she screams, she believes thatIcan touch her.”