The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (41 page)

“Where to, milord?” Langdon asked.

Brantley stroked his moustache and looked to the south. “The Cairs. We found her there once, we’ll find her there again.” Suddenly he smiled, certain now that his choice was the correct one—as all of his choices were. He added with a sneer at Langdon, “And I have an idea who can tell us exactly where we’ll find her.”

“Do not seek to know thyself. Seek to know my will,

for I alone of this world am divine.”

- The Prophet Bethamin

Kjieran waited
in the vestry feeling raw and even more unnerved than usual. That morning he’d sent off a hastily scribed message to the Fourth Vestal reporting on everything he’d heard since Dore Madden returned to the temple. The man claimed he’d finally found the pattern he needed for the Prophet to turn even simple men into wielders of Bethamin’s Fire and effectively build the Prophet’s army of would-be Shades. The mere thought was so horrific to Kjieran that he’d taken particular risks in getting the message relayed. Now he waited uneasily for Dore to arrive with his ‘proof.’

When Dore did appear, he led four Ascendants carrying a litter between them. At first glance, Kjieran thought the litter bore a life-size ebony statue, but as the group neared, he realized to his horror that it was actually a man.

Dore led the Ascendants through the nave and into the north transept, which culminated in an apse whose dome hosted ornate fan vaulting such that the walls and ceiling seemed to be made of bleached bones. An identical apse crowned the south end of the transept. Each time he entered the apse, Kjieran felt like he was intruding on the lair of a great spider, and he avoided looking up whenever possible.

Dore was instructing the Ascendants in placing the dead man atop a stone altar when the Prophet arrived. “What have you for me, Dore Madden?” 

“A triumph, my lord.”  Dore pushed his white hair back from his forehead and licked his lips, adding unctuously, “One of many more to come in your name.”

Kjieran hovered at the edge of the apse waiting to serve his lord should he be required, but the vantage gave him a clear view of everyone now standing on the dais.

“What is this then?” The Prophet indicated the man lying atop the altar.

“This is the future of your army, my lord. I have uncovered the secret
Malachai ap’Kalien
and Björn van Gelderan have been hiding about their Shades, the reason the creatures can wield the dark power
deyjiin
. I theorized that they used first and fifth-strand patterns to alter the basic composition of the men who were to become Shades. Following this theory, I have found a similar pattern to the one they may have used—alas I fear it is not the same pattern exactly—yet with this alteration, a mortal’s body can withstand your superior Fire.”

The Prophet looked over the man upon the altar and arched a black eyebrow. “This one does not seem be alive.”

“Regrettably, he died during the conversion process—but had he first been
bound to you
, my lord,” Dore added pointedly, “his lifeforce tied to yours, pinning his soul to his body, his sight subject to your every inspection…
then
such a man might become a true weapon, an extension of your divine will.”

The Prophet looked at him sharply. “What is this? A new binding?”

“There are many types of binding patterns, my lord, each producing a different level of awareness between the subjects. They all require mutual fluids—blood or semen are best—to seal the bond. Such a binding allows one to know another’s mind…to see what he sees.”

The Prophet arched a brow. “To hear his thoughts?”

“That’s the beauty of it, my lord.” He licked his lips and continued, “Establishing telepathy within a binding is very difficult. It is rarely achieved outside of two Adepts of the fourth strand. However, the binding of which I speak would circumvent this complication. As the subject’s body changes from living flesh into a powerful weapon of your Fire, yet with his soul pinned to you such that death does not claim him…it is conceivable that you would eventually rule such a one completely.”

“How long would this process take?”

“The Pattern of Changing takes some time, my lord. During the conversion, your control over the subject will vary. But once the conversion is complete…” here he licked his lips again, eyes wild, his voice rising and words coming faster with his excitement, “my lord…you would have the freedom to move into and out of any member of your army at any time, taking over their body to carry out your will! In this way, we would bind your army to you, but you would not be bound to them, my lord. No,
no,
they would not know your mind unless you willed it.”

Kjieran’s trepidation grew with each new piece of information, for Dore’s logic was sound.
He could really do this!
The very thought made Kjieran shudder. Even without knowing the exact patterns Dore intended to use, it was conceivable in theory to accomplish everything the madman claimed.

The Prophet stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Perhaps a demonstration, my lord?” Dore suggested, licking his lips, and at the Prophet’s nod to continue, he explained, “If you were to send your Fire into this man,” and he laid spindly fingers upon the dead man’s leg, “enough to destroy a mortal body, I would you might see the result.”

The Prophet arched a skeptical brow, but he laid his hand upon the man all the same. Kjieran felt the room grow colder, so instantly cold that his breath frosted in the air. He hugged his arms and watched with growing alarm as a grey miasma spread beneath the dead man into the altar. It had consumed only half of the supporting pedestal before the entire altar erupted in a geyser of marble dust. Billowing clouds enveloped the entire apse. Kjieran threw one arm across his nose and mouth and spun away.

When the dust finally settled and the countless spasms of choking from the others subsided, the altar was gone but the dead man remained, lying haphazardly across the broken stones.

Long sunrays filtered through the tainted air, but the Prophet stood untouched, his black hair in vibrant contrast to the dusting of pale powder that enshrouded both apse and men. He turned his piercing gaze on Dore. “I must think on this.” Then he left.

Kjieran left, too, fleeing to his chambers to send yet another desperate report to the Fourth Vestal.

He’d just finished sealing the bottom of the pillar candle when a pounding on his door startled him enough that he nearly dropped it. Wary, he set the candle behind all the others on his shelf and went to open his door.

An Ascendant stood on the threshold. Seeing him, Kjieran’s stomach turned.

No. Oh no!

With a sinking feeling of dread, he managed, “Yes, Ascendant?”

“The Prophet calls you to attend him, acolyte.”

“Of course,” Kjieran answered, though he could barely breathe.

He followed the Ascendant to the Prophet’s chambers with fear as an anvil crushing his chest. Everything about this meeting felt wrong, and instinct told him that he should be more afraid still. 

He found the prophet waiting in a stone-paved cloister where a central tiered fountain made quiet music. Bethamin faced away from Kjieran with his hands clasped behind his back, but he turned as the truthreader neared. Kjieran fell to his knees and bowed his head. “My lord.” 

The Prophet placed hands upon his face to draw him up. “I would look upon your eyes again, Kjieran.” Kjieran dutifully raised his eyes to meet the Prophet’s dark gaze. Bethamin’s hands were warm upon his face, but his eyes were so very cold…

His thumb brushed Kjieran’s lips, once…twice.  Then the Prophet released him. “You heard Dore’s good news,” he remarked, motioning for Kjieran to walk with him.

Kjieran cringed at the descriptive. “Yes, my lord.”

“It is timely, for our ally, Prince Radov, goes to parley with the leader of the desert tribes, his enemy. The King of Dannym will also be there.”  He turned Kjieran an intense look. “It suits our purposes for Dannym to fall.”

Kjieran nearly missed a step. “How…is that, my lord?”

The Prophet stopped at the end of a courtyard framed in fig trees, and where four marble thrones were arranged in a circle. He turned to Kjieran. “You have served me loyally, Kjieran, and for this, I shall reward you.” 

Kjieran stiffened. The Prophet had twisted ideas of reward and punishment.

The Prophet looked down upon him, and terror reared within the quiet court and grabbed Kjieran in its clutches. Bethamin’s eyes were utterly without feeling, as devoid of emotion as the icy edges of the cosmos, yet Kjieran understood that the Prophet felt
something
for him. “Dannym is a bastion that must crumble if my brothers and I are to accomplish our objectives, if my faith is to prevail in the hearts and minds of men. Without Gydryn val Lorian—without any of his sons to carry forward his name—this northern kingdom which has so long stood against me will falter. Its peoples, oft denied my truth, will embrace me wholly.”  The Prophet settled both hands on Kjieran’s shoulders. “This great honor do I bestow upon you, Kjieran. To be my hand in Tal’Shira and destroy this king.”

Kjieran stopped breathing.

“I know that he denied you, turned you away from his service. Is it not fitting then this reward? Are you not grateful for the chance to serve me in eliminating him and gain your due retribution?”

“I live for your s-service, my lord,” Kjieran stammered, knowing now that he was doomed.

“I would that you kill the king during this parley. It is the opportune time, when the fault may be laid at the feet of any number of others.”

“But…” Kjieran searched desperately for some counter to this plan. “But King Gydryn is Radov’s ally, my lord. Would not such an act against the prince’s allies endanger your relationship with M’Nador?”

“Radov’s duplicity has taken royal blood before on behalf of the Duke of Morwyk,” the Prophet remarked dismissively. “Mention not the task you are upon for me, yet trust that none in Tal’Shira shall prevent you from its accomplishment.” 

Kjieran struggled to focus—had the Prophet really just intimated that Radov was behind the deaths of Prince Sebastian and Trell on behalf of Stephan val Tryst, Duke of Morwyk?
Dear Epiphany
—Radov claimed to be the king’s ally!

The Prophet cupped Kjieran’s face with one hand, and had Kjieran not known him so well, he might’ve imagined there was tenderness in the gesture. Bethamin’s eyes seared into him, pinning him with their force, snaring his attention to the exclusion of all else. “In you I have discovered new ideas,” the Prophet confessed, rousing Kjieran’s foreboding to alarming levels, “concepts as yet untried and untested. You have alerted me to bold new areas where I might venture…and you have engendered something I have never known before.”

Abruptly he leaned and captured Kjieran’s mouth with his own. The kiss that time was fierce. Bethamin held his face with both hands and took of him what he would. His mouth was demanding, his tongue a flame that stole Kjieran’s breath, and suffusing every part of his kiss was the Prophet’s hunger for him.

When Bethamin finally released him, it was only to rest his forehead against Kjieran’s as if the kiss had been an intimate connection and not a brutal rape. “I find that what I desire, Kjieran,” he told him quietly, “is to give you what you desire.”

Kjieran was reeling. He didn’t know where this was going, only that it was nowhere he wanted to be. “How?” he whispered, agonized and terrified.

“The greatest reward: to serve me as the first of your kind. Bound to me, that I might truly know your mind—”

Kjieran tore away from the Prophet in revulsion, staggering into a marble throne, his entire being railing against such horror.

Mistaking his reaction, the Prophet collected him back into his arms. “You desired freedom, and I am giving it to you. This is what you wanted, is it not?”

Kjieran froze, his mind in a panic. He couldn’t think of a single way to avoid this inevitable outcome, and the knowledge pierced him so wholly that he could barely breathe. His soul was hemorrhaging.

“As my newest servant, you will be bound to me body and soul. Dore assures me the only end for such as you will become is immolation.”  He ran his hand down Kjieran’s face, blending in his tears, and said in an ominous voice, “You shall be mine forever more.”

Kjieran gasped, “
This
is freedom?”

The Prophet laid his forehead against Kjieran’s again, his powerful arms still holding him, already binding him to his will. “I do not wish to compel you, Kjieran,” he murmured as if an intimate troth. “I know you are strong enough—brave enough—to give me honesty in return for these graces I bestow upon you. You’ve proven this to me. It is still true, is it not?”

Sucking in a shuddering breath, Kjieran nodded.

“But if I must compel you, I will do so,” the Prophet warned. “Dore assures me the bond will facilitate compulsion once the conversion is complete.” 

With this ominous caution, a promise and a farewell, the Prophet grazed his lips across Kjieran’s forehead and then stepped back. Abruptly rough hands grabbed Kjieran’s arms and hauled him backwards into the stone chair, and ropes were slung about his body, binding him to it. 

Dore arrived then, coming into the yard out of Kjieran’s sight—he only heard the wielder’s voice as he advised, “You will need some of his blood, my lord. It must be within your energy as you form the binding.”