The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (36 page)

“Therein lies your defense.”

It was all the warning Ean had. In the next moment, Markal’s staff came sweeping for his feet. Ean jumped back. Markal swung again, on the advance. Ean skipped away.

Abruptly Markal stood up and settled his staff at his toes. “I did not say dodge and dart like a jackrabbit. You have a means of defending yourself. Use it.” He swung his staff with sudden ferocity.

Ean veered back just in time to prevent its connecting with his chin. “Shade and darkness!” he swore, glaring hotly at the man. “Are you trying to
kill
me?”

Markal replied by swinging his staff low to catch the back of Ean’s calves, knocking him forward. He finished with a lightning-swift jab between the prince’s shoulder-blades, and Ean was licking the stones.

Smarting all over, and especially in the area of his pride, Ean pushed himself up to hands and knees, calves throbbing, his spine burning. He cast Markal a black glare. “What in Tiern’aval am I supposed to
do
with the rope?”

“That is for you to decide,” Markal informed him critically.

Ean climbed back to his feet and slung the rope out in front of him. He thought about Julian’s admonition not to wear his sword and wondered blackly if it was to protect Markal from a horde of students bent on killing him.

Holding the rope in both hands, he tried to get a sense of what to do with it. His talent had only ever appeared in the unworking of patterns, never in the conceiving of them. A great many people had told him, however, that the ability to work them lay dormant within him, that it he simply had to wake it.

“KNOW the effect you wish to create,” Markal said again, darting at him.

Ean slung the rope in defense but only managed to get it stuck around the staff. Markal had him down three seconds later.

The morning continued in this vein.

By midday, Ean was stripped to his britches and sweating. His torso bore the marks of Markal’s teaching—long red welts, bruises that were circular and puffy, bluish shadows along his ribs on both sides.

As Ean pushed up from the ground yet again, wondering for the umpteenth time why he bothered getting back to his feet but certain that he would even if it was just to spite the older man, Markal said, “You must KNOW the rope will stop the staff, Ean.”

“Yes, so you’ve been saying,” Ean grumbled. He’d tried a thousand different ways of envisioning the rope stopping the staff, but none of them had any effect. “I’ve been trying to—”

“
Try
,” Markal muttered. “Don’t
try. Try
isn’t KNOW. Know is a state of being. It is the aggregate of
certainty
over energy, space, matter, time and form. It is the exact existence of a thing—the fullness of its complete concept. It is KNOW!”

“Yes, but I don’t know the pattern!” Ean snapped.

“The First Law doesn’t say ‘know the
pattern
,’” Markal returned scornfully. “The First Law says nothing about patterns.”

The First Law doesn’t say anything about beating
up students with your staff either
, Ean thought resentfully, but he kept this sentiment to himself
.

“Again,” Markal said, brandishing his staff, relentless in his expectation. “You have to KNOW that the rope will stop the staff.”

Frustrated, Ean snarled, “It’s just a rope!”

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Markal returned resolutely.

Two hours and at least thirty bruises later, Ean was still no closer to knowing how to make the rope stop the staff, but he had definitely decided that little else was going to be learned by letting Markal beat him to a pulp.

He’d seen the man turn the rope into the staff. Ean reasoned that if there was a pattern holding the staff in that form, he could as easily unwork it as work some new pattern on his own rope.

He set to searching for the pattern as soon as he happened upon the idea, and he found it almost at once.

The next time Markal came at him with the staff, Ean snared the pattern and unworked it with ease. The staff collapsed harmlessly back to rope. Ean gave him a triumphant look.

Markal straightened and began coiling the rope in his hand, leveling Ean a quiet, contemptuous stare. “So I see you haven’t changed. You have ever only resorted to one skill to solve all your problems—an indolent and shiftless approach to the Art. I’m only surprised you let me beat you up half the day before you used it.” With that, he walked across the yard. “Tomorrow. Dawn,” he said without looking back. 

Ean found his way to his rooms smarting on the inside as much as out. Markal’s sharp words of censure had unexpectedly wounded him. He never imagined being compared against the standard of his own misdeeds—ones he couldn’t even remember, no less! How could he but make the same mistakes if it was so impossible to change his basic nature? Did that mean he was doomed to die yet again, no matter what the First Lord said about Balance?

Worse, he had honestly been trying for most of the day to do what Markal asked of him. He didn’t know what he was doing wrong. He didn’t know why it wasn’t working, and he was just as disappointed in himself as Markal obviously was. Raine’s truth, the man was impossible! Every bit as insufferable as the zanthyr, but at least the zanthyr had been sort of nice to him.

Quit feeling sorry for yourself,
he chastised with gritted teeth, yet that innocent, selfless part of him that had been honestly trying now felt hopelessly wounded. As he reached his rooms in shame, it crawled beneath the sideboard and refused to come out again, leaving Ean with only his bitter, self-absorbed side for company.

He found a hot bath waiting for him, and after an hour’s soak he’d managed to relieve some of the stiffness, but he knew tomorrow would be a painful repeat of today if he didn’t have some brilliant realization between now and then.

Just as he stood to depart the tub, there came a knock on his door. Ean glanced toward the robe folded on a chair far across the room. “Just a moment,” he called, climbing out of the tub.

The door opened and Ean turned, dripping.

“Am I interrupting,” Isabel inquired, standing framed in the portal.

Ean skipped forward, grabbed up his robe and wrapped himself in it. Blindfold or no, Isabel gave him the impression that she could see perfectly well, and it wasn’t proper for an unmarried lady to see a man so bared. “If you were hoping to catch me naked and unawares,” Ean returned with the slightest flush, “your timing was a little off, my lady.”

She smiled. “Was it?” She moved slowly through the door letting her black staff lead the way. She wore a dark silk gown that afternoon, the belled sleeves embroidered in silver ivy. As always, a black silk scarf embraced her eyes like a jealous lover, its long folds left free to mingle with her lustrous chestnut hair.

“Markal mentioned you might be in need of a Healer,” she said as she made her slow approach.

Gazing upon her, Ean felt suddenly as if a lost part of himself had returned, and only in its recovery could he admit the terrible loss he’d endured at its lacking. He stood and drank in the sight of her.

Isabel stopped mere inches away and rested her staff on the floor, leaving it to stand freely in midair. She placed her palm on his wet chest. “Mmm,” she murmured. “Your pattern is definitely frayed. Shall I smooth it for you?”

“What would that entail?” Ean inquired breathlessly. To have her touch upon his bare skin…

Isabel placed her other hand on his chest, and heat flooded Ean. “Isabel…” he whispered, closing his eyes against surging feelings.

“Shh…” She moved even closer, so they stood nearly in an embrace; only the width of her hands separated them. Ean watched his own chest rising and falling with his quickening breath and drew in the scent of her. And the blindfold! Oh, how it stirred him. He wanted to take it off and gaze into her eyes, ever denied him, but he also wanted to take her blindfolded until she begged for a release only he might offer. Dear Epiphany, the things he envisioned them doing together…

“The healing goes faster when the subject’s mind is less active,” Isabel advised with a half-smile hinting in the corner of her lips.

“Whyever would I want that?”

She chuckled. “You do not fear the consequences of courting Epiphany’s Prophet?”

“There is no fear I wouldn’t face to stay forever at your side, Isabel.”

“Hmm…” she murmured, and her teasing smile was a delightful torment.

A heartbeat later, Ean felt the last of his pain easing and knew she’d completed her Healing. He grabbed her hands before she could remove them, pinning them instead against his skin that he might feel her touch just a few moments more.

She stood and let him maintain their silent contact, their bodies close enough to feel each other’s warmth. Finally, when the desire to seal his mouth upon hers and carry her to his bed was more than he could bear, Ean released her hands and exhaled a breath, stepping back.

She gave him her smile as a parting kiss.

“When—” he asked with sudden desperation.

“Dinner,” she murmured as she turned and took up her staff. He watched her leave and close the door. Then he sagged into his chair and pushed a hand to his head.
Epiphany preserve me from this woman!
For what he’d said had been completely true. There was no evil in the world he wouldn’t face if his reward was eternity with Isabel van Gelderan.

“No move is made as doesn’t affect every other. The game is played upon the lake of time, casting ripples through the ages
.”

- Ramuhárikhamáth, Lord of the Heavens

Just as
Ean was about to put on his boots and head out, there came another knock on his door. Hoping it was Isabel, he opened the door instead to the face of a Shade. It took him a precious few heartbeats to recognize Creighton.

“Ean!” the Shade grabbed him into a joyous embrace.

But Ean was so startled to see him, and so disappointed in the same moment that it wasn’t Isabel standing there instead, that he stiffened within Creighton’s arms.

The Shade withdrew at once. “I’m…sorry,” he said, his silver face betraying his deep injury at Ean’s unintended rebuff. “I shouldn’t have presumed, Ean. I just thought…”

His expression tore at Ean’s heart. “Creighton, oh gods,
no
. I didn’t mean—”

But the Shade was already fading.

Ean stood in the threshold for a long time cursing himself.

When he finally made it to dinner, his heart felt as heavy as a stone in his chest. While his rejection of Creighton had been unintentional, he admitted he was still uncomfortable around Creighton’s Shade and could not bring himself to think of this…unearthly representation as truly being his blood-brother.

They took dinner that evening in Björn’s private garden, a lush habitat of soaring acacia trees, coconut palms and tropical flowers. The First Lord stood to receive Ean as he was shown out onto the marble patio. The table was set for three, but Isabel had not yet arrived.

“Welcome, Ean. Thank you for joining me tonight.”

“I am honored, First Lord,” Ean replied while taking a seat. He couldn’t help but admire the incredible diversity of the flora. “This is a marvelous place,” he observed.

“Thank you, yes. This part of the mountain protects natural hot springs. The elms were dying, but these tropicals, as you can see, have flourished.” He sat back in his chair and gestured with his goblet as he noted philosophically, “All creatures cannot be crammed into the same mold. Creation is frenzied and diverse, unrestricted by human concepts and boundaries.” He eyed Ean inquisitively then. “And how did your training go with Markal?”

“The man has it in for me,” Ean muttered tactlessly, only to immediately regret his outburst. “Forgive me,” he said, dropping his eyes with embarrassment. “That was churlish of me, and uncalled for. My day has been…difficult.”

Björn gave him a tolerant look. “No doubt this
is
exactly how it seems to you,” he admitted. “Yet if that were true, if Markal cared but little, he would merely teach you as he does the others. They have an infinity of time in which to learn—lifetimes of study yet before them. You—
we
—don’t have that luxury. You must relearn or remember as much as you can in the time allowed us, and unfortunately, such forgotten lessons are rarely recovered to our consciousness except out of dire necessity.” 

Björn settled him an even look, but there was no way to diminish the seriousness of his words. “Markal does what he does, Ean, because if there is a way for us to prevail in this endeavor—if there is a way for you to do this without sacrificing your life in the bargain—
this
training will lie at the base of it.”

Ean heard these words and knew he spoke the truth, yet he still didn’t know what ‘this endeavor’ actually encompassed. And he was too embarrassed—too certain that he
ought
to know this above all—to ask. He rested elbows on the marble table and sank his head into his hands. “There’s so much I don’t remember,” he lamented miserably. “Why can’t I remember?”