The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (49 page)

Brantley stared at her for a moment, drank the last dregs of his wine, and finally cleared his throat. “Well…she is desirable to my lord.”

“And who would be this great lord?”

“His Grace, Stefan val Tryst.”

Ghislain fixed her dark eyes upon the Earl of Pent. “I am most interested to know what the Duke of Morwyk hopes to gain by apprehending the Duchess of Aracine. Did he not already attempt to kidnap her once?” 

Brantley paled.

Ghislain gazed evenly at him. The man was entirely out of his element.

“I…I am not privy to the details of the Duke’s interest in the Duchess,” the earl hedged uncomfortably.

Ghislain took another sip of wine. “What then have you to offer me, Brantley, Earl of Pent? The whereabouts of the Healer Alyneri d’Giverny will not come cheap.”

Brantley took a step toward her. “I have coin—”

“The only coins exchanging hands within these walls, my lord, are gifts from my patrons, and I don’t believe your pockets are nearly deep enough to contract for that service.”

Brantley pulled uncomfortably at his doublet. “Then what…?”

“As you well noted, my lord. I am a woman of information.
This
is the currency I expect in exchange. Now,” she added as she settled more comfortably into her chair, “I will know why the Duke wants the Duchess so desperately. And while we’re about it, you can fill me in on his other plans. I am most interested to know when he expects his army to march on Calgaryn.”

Brantley went whiter than a winter hare. “I couldn’t…couldn’t possibly—”

“Now, now, Earl,” she cautioned. “You need this information. You know it, and I know it. That is your first error in coming to me, for you have no leverage with which to wage your bargain. If I’m not mistaken, you need not return to Dannym at all if it is not in the company of Alyneri d’Giverny. So…which is more important to you, Lord Brantley, Earl of Pent? The girl or the information I require in payment?”  Ghislain blessed the earl with a lovely smile, reminiscent of her younger years, but he was looking entirely too ill to notice its glory.

Not much later, Ghislain stood in the deep night shadows of the balcony outside her salon overlooking the Villa D’Antoinette’s yard, where Lord Brantley and his men were imprudently discussing their plans. Their words carried upon the evening breeze as if shouted in an amphitheater, floating to her ears with crystal clarity. She had often used the vantage to learn secrets too delicate to be spoken even within her walls. Unfortunately, on this night, the knowledge would be of little use to anyone.

“You told them where to find her, my lady?” asked the exotic Riselle as she came to stand beside Ghislain in the shadows.

“Of course,” Ghislain returned in a voice for Riselle’s ears alone. “The price was right. I have many contacts who will pay handsomely to know when Morwyk marches on Calgaryn—especially Morin d’Hain.”

“But what of the Mage’s missive?”

“The missive mentioned nothing of the girl. She will have to make her own way.”

Voices floated to them from below as Lord Brantley issued his commands, sending men to watch the villa where the duchess was staying.

“My lady,” Riselle said quietly then, “don’t you think the Mage would want you to protect the prince
and
his lady love?”

Ghislain sighed. “You know I cannot be seen to take sides, Riselle. And who am I to presume what complex twists drive the Mage’s game? Perhaps whatever happens with this Lord Brantley is important to the greater whole. One never knows such things.”  She turned and headed back inside.

Riselle’s dark eyes remained troubled as she followed and closed the door, however, so Ghislain cupped her face tenderly with one hand. “We walk the paths we are upon, Riselle, taking things as they come. Seeking to know what lies around each bend only brings regret, as Epiphany’s Prophet has long advised. Trust to the river that carries us all—that is the best we can do.”

Riselle dropped her eyes. “Yes, my lady.”

“Now come. You have guests to greet, and I have many men waiting to be embarrassingly schooled in a game of Kings.”

And so did the ladies depart to their mutual entertainments.

***

Far across the realm in the Temple of Tambarré, Kjieran van Stone fell through the doorway of his room onto hands and knees, shaking uncontrollably. The Ascendants who’d carried him back from Bethamin’s courtyard dared say nothing to him, but he could feel their disgust radiating as they made their way off down the hall. They didn’t know what he’d just endured, and they wouldn’t have cared if they had. He kicked at the door until it slammed and then crawled on his elbows toward the chest against the far wall.

He was violently ill.

Kjieran never imagined such pain could exist within the realm of human perception, that his mind might share as much agony as the rest of his body and still be alive. Whimpering with every motion, Kjieran dragged himself across the room and then collapsed. His head was swimming. Suddenly he felt vertigo rushing up, and he rolled onto his side and vomited again, though nothing remained in his stomach. Still he couldn’t stop retching.

His organs felt ruptured, his lungs burned, and every vein in his body seemed to run with fire instead of blood. He was sweating profusely yet felt uncommonly cold—infinitely cold—cold like death long settled into his bones.

Think of your king!

It was all he could manage, this one thought, all that had kept him holding to sanity throughout the torture of Dore’s interminable working. It was what drove him to press on, to crawl, elbow before elbow, dragging unresponsive legs toward that chest and his last shred of hope.

When he reached it, he collapsed again with a shuddering sob and almost lost his resolve, almost gave in to the swarming darkness and the pain, but he knew he had to contain his despair a little longer. He could feel the Prophet’s binding heavy upon him, but without compulsion to guide it, the pattern lay dormant. If he could just get to Raine’s talisman…

Kjieran struggled up, fighting vertigo and near unconsciousness at every stage. He knew he took a chance working the trace-seal, for Bethamin might be watching even then through Kjieran’s own eyes, subverted now to become extensions of the Prophet’s own.

In the air before the chest, he traced the pattern he’d memorized so long ago. Nothing happened. He tried again to equal lack of effect. After the fourth agonized attempt, Kjieran finally realized that his hand was shaking too dramatically to form the pattern. He took hold of his right hand with his left then, and using one hand to hold the other steady, he traced the seal again. On the second attempt of this nature, he heard a nearly imperceptible click.

Kjieran tore out the drawer along the bottom of the trunk and grabbed the little amulet Raine had constructed for him. It was naught but a small silver disk inscribed with the
iederal’a
, the sign of the Adept race, a circle crossed by three lines forming an A, but the entire chain and amulet were a talisman, a focal point for
elae
. Drenched in patterns, the talisman protected the wearer from subversive fourth-strand patterns and had been crafted to stave off the deleterious effects of Bethamin’s dark power—as best Raine could provide, that is, which was not inconsiderable by any means.

Kjieran shoved the amulet over his head and fell onto his side, sucking in wheezing gasps around the overwhelming grief that gripped him. He wept then, letting the world spin, praying the talisman would have some power against the terrible things that had been to done to him.

He must have slept, for he woke in darkness with a scream. Bethamin’s bond was foremost in his mind, a cold and heavy weight of presence. When Kjieran realized his last many hours had not been an unimaginably horrible dream, he broke down again, and a sob escaped him before he found the courage to hold the rest back.

Everything was not lost.

He still had hold of his mind—for now. He could still act upon his own direction, so long as he did not seem to be working against the Prophet’s desires.

And he was being sent south to kill his king.

He knew Dore’s pattern had begun to change him already, but he felt slightly less overwhelmed by the knowledge, as if perhaps Raine’s talisman was at least slowing the process. The idea gave him hope. Perhaps something could be salvaged.

He was immensely relieved that he had written his last report before being claimed. Even so, there was more to add—
Morwyk and Radov and a secret alliance!
He would have to be very careful writing such a truth, careful that the Prophet wasn’t watching, but he could still leave it for others to take.

He would be departing soon for Tal’Shira—Dore was taking him there upon the nodes—but with Raine’s talisman staving off the ultimate end, perhaps there was some chance…some slight chance that he could salvage something of this disaster, even if nothing might be salvaged of him.

“If life be art then paint me in vivid color. Let no shade hide from my ken.”

- The painter Immanuel di Nostri

In the days
following their sailing expedition, Pelas took Tanis on a whirlwind tour of the realm that the lad might come to know just a smattering of the infinite experiences to be observed—from the bullfights of Vaalden, to the violent ball courts of Ma’hrkit, to the Wyr’Umjai Crater on the Agasi island of Palma-Lai, where a host of strange and wondrous animals thrived. He took Tanis to the ruins of Cyrene near the exotic city of Sakkalaah, then across the Fire Sea to the vast crystal caves of Vest. He even showed him the smoldering deserts of Avatar and their spontaneous smokeless fires that covered miles and sometimes burned for years on end.

Even had every day not been wondrous and fascinating and somewhat manic at times, still Tanis would have willingly gone, for each day that Pelas spent entertaining him was a day he didn’t torture and kill one more of the realm’s treasured Healers. Tanis always lived in fear of this, for he knew Pelas’s darker side must eventually resurface. Every time he thought of the round-faced Healer at the party in Bemoth, who’d seemed so kind and so unaware of the deadly creature that lusted after her, he felt somehow burdened with her protection.

So he did his best to keep Pelas interested in showing him things, and to challenge him to question his doctrines. Tanis felt terribly small and inadequate to the task of changing a Malorin’athgul’s point of view. He knew enough about Pelas by then to understand that the man had lived for eons. How could a mere boy of fourteen teach an immortal creature anything of the truths of their realm? Yet if Tanis did not, who would?

The Fhorgs were certainly of no help. They just exacerbated the issue, always drawing their own blood in various grim ways for different rituals which were somehow vital for the sun to rise and set. Never mind most people in the world lived perfectly adequate lives without slicing themselves up on a daily basis. Try to explain that to a Fhorg, and he’d look at you like you were the most uneducated imbecile ever to walk the realm.

Tanis had several times wondered if the Fhorgs fueled Pelas’s obsession or if his fed into theirs. Whichever the truth, Pelas’s relationship with the Fhorgs sustained each of their mutual delusions.

They’d only recently returned to Pelas’s home when
 Tanis woke on an overcast morning to find Pelas gone. None of the Fhorgs knew where he was or when he’d left, and Tanis feared the worst. All day he moped about the manse with a sick feeling of dread, starting at the least little noise and jumping at shadows. Phaedor’s dagger had found its way back to him again, and he thumbed the blade all during the day’s idle exercise, though the cold black stone offered little by way of emotional support.

Not much for conversation to begin with, the Fhorgs eyed him uncertainly and kept their distance. Tanis knew enough from their thoughts to know they suspected him of being some kind of witch because he was immune to Pelas’s power. They also thought he’d cast a spell on Pelas due to the close relationship the two of them were forming, and they were certain he was a spy.

Another day passed without word from Pelas, and Tanis grew ever more uneasy, only now he feared for Pelas as much as he had for the Healer. Had something happened to him? Had one of his brothers caught up with him? Had an assassin’s Merdanti dagger found its mark? These and many more fears accosted the lad repeatedly, interrupted only by his own self-ridicule.

The man’s managed to keep himself alive for centuries without your help, Tanis!
he told himself by way of consolation, but with all of the incredibly dangerous and reckless things Pelas did, Tanis felt it was sheer dumb luck that he survived at all.

On the third day after Pelas’s disappearance, Tanis woke to find the house completely empty and knew Pelas had returned.

On the one hand, this alleviated his fears for the man’s welfare. On the other, his intuition told him Pelas had returned with a Healer, and the knowledge made him so sick of heart and stomach that he couldn’t eat a thing all day. A storm was battering the manse when Tanis woke, and the rains only grew worse as the day drew on. Tanis fretted in each moment about Pelas’s activities, and he wandered nervously from room to room trying to make up his mind what to do.

He had to stop this.

That much he knew, even without the painful urging of that sense of duty, which grew so tremendous in its intensity during the afternoon that Tanis was near to tears over it. He couldn’t bear feeling so inadequate, but he’d wracked his mind trying to think of some way to help Pelas, or at least the Healer, and…nothing. Even should he envision some elaborate plan, he had no idea where Pelas or the Fhorgs even were—certainly they were nowhere in the house, and naught but empty cliffs spread for miles in both directions.

Tanis was leaning his forehead despondently against one of the large windows overlooking the cliffs to the north when lightning split the sky and he saw five small dark shapes making their way back to the manse, the last of them emerging from the cliff’s edge even as he watched.

Instantly the lad bolted off—even before that sense of duty started screaming, even before the desperate panic overtook him.

Tanis sprinted outside and flung himself across the moors, coming upon the Fhorgs as they rounded a rise. The Fhorg called Jain was in the lead. Tanis knew all of their names now, though they didn’t like it when he used them and only really tolerated Pelas doing it because he could annihilate them with one finger. Fhorgs were weird about names.

Tanis came to a skidding halt in front of Jain, who lifted his woad-stained face and pinned the lad with a look as storm-ridden as the day. “What happened?” Tanis gasped, discerning from his expression that something was terribly wrong.

“Pelas went to confront his brother,” the Fhorg admitted, albeit reluctantly. “It did nae go well. Now he’s in a rage as we’ve ne’er seen. Been at it all night w’th’ Healer, but really he’s only just begun—” he was interrupted by one of his brethren shouting at him irately in their own language, and the two of them went at each other while Tanis waited with desperate impatience. Finally, Jain punched the other one into sullen submission, looked back to Tanis and finished, “Pelas sent us away, l’l spy. We did nae e’n inspect the Healer’s blood.”

The other Fhorgs grumbled fiercely about this in two languages. Tanis didn’t catch all of it, but he heard enough to realize there might still be a chance to help the Healer and Pelas both. “Which brother did Pelas see?” he hastened to ask, thinking it might be important.

Jain shrugged as the rain poured down atop them all. “He does nae confide in us as ‘e confides in ye, l’l spy,” he answered loudly over the storm. “Perhaps ye can help him find himself again, for I think his brother sent him over th’ edge.”

“Where is he?” Tanis asked desperately.

“In the caves,” and Jain jerked his head back the way they’d come.

Tanis took off in a dead run.

“
Ye take yer life in yer hands goin’ down there!
” Jain called after him, and Tanis couldn’t be sure, for he was running so hard, but he thought he heard him shout, “
But maybe ye should…for his sake.
”

Tanis almost missed the stairs leading down the cliff face, for the trail opening onto them could barely be discerned among the black rocks. He had to slow as he took the stairs, for they were treacherous indeed, cut right into the side of the cliff with no handholds and nothing to prevent a fall of several hundred feet onto razor-sharp rocks should his foot slide on the perilously wet stone.

The cave was halfway down the cliff face, but Tanis was cringing ever before he reached it, for Pelas’s thoughts came tumbling up to him in force. Wave upon wave of malevolent fury assaulted the boy, and he had to concentrate as much on trying to close his mind against Pelas’s anger as upon setting one foot safely before the other.

He paused just above the cave entrance to catch his breath, but nothing could prepare him for the force of Pelas’s anger. It blasted out of the cave like heat from a forge, repelling Tanis mentally as well as physically. The Fhorg had been speaking the truth—Pelas was over the edge.

In the flash of a moment, Tanis realized that while their ideologies might lead them to draw very different conclusions about what is morally acceptable, this did not necessarily make the Fhorgs inherently evil men. That Jain understood Pelas was in need of help…clearly he cared for him, even as Tanis did.

Shivering now from the pelting rain as much as from his own fear, Tanis drew in a shaky breath and braved a look into the cave.

He recognized the Healer, Medira, who was strung naked and spread-eagled between two wooden posts. Her flesh was marked in many places. Tanis knew it would be too dangerous to open his mind to her thoughts to assess her condition, for he would then become equally subject to Pelas’s onslaught again, and he didn’t think he could experience that and keep his sanity. But he didn’t have to know the Healer’s mind to know she wished for death. The look on her face communicated that clearly enough.

Further back in the cave, closer to the torches, Pelas stood with his back to Tanis assessing a table of knives. Tanis knew it might be his only chance to act.

Moving as quickly as he dared, Tanis stole into the cave. At one point Pelas selected a blade and almost turned, and Tanis dropped to his knees, catching his breath, but a different knife caught the Malorin’athgul’s eye instead, and he set to sharpening it.

Tanis crawled the last few paces on hands and knees. He was shaking so hard when he reached the Healer that he could barely grasp hold of his dagger to get it out of his boot, but he managed somehow and only blessed Phaedor a thousand times for the dagger’s ever-returning nature…for its being Merdanti. The
goracrosta
ropes that bound the Healer parted with ease beneath its razor edge. Tanis had just released Medira’s final limb when Pelas turned.

The look on his face would haunt the boy’s dreams for weeks to come.

The man he knew had gone. In his place scowled a vicious creature whose features were so twisted with pain and fury that they seemed a mummer’s mask. The darkness consumed Pelas wholly.

The monster that had Pelas in thrall threw his hand out, fingers splayed, and Tanis and the healer both went tumbling through the air. The lad’s head hit hard against the cave wall in a blinding flash of pain, and then he fell helplessly forward, losing his breath in the bargain. Pushing up to knees and elbows, Tanis focused through the pain in his skull and saw Medira dragging herself toward the cave mouth.

Then Pelas was upon him.

He grabbed the boy up by his neck in a choking hold such that Tanis’s vision soon turned black at the edges. “Where did you get this dagger?” Pelas snarled, shaking the lad as he ripped the dagger from his hand.

Tanis knew something was dreadfully wrong. He couldn’t move one arm and his head felt fuzzy yet throbbed violently at the same time.

“
Tell me who gave you this weapon!
” 

Tanis felt Pelas’s dark power wrapping around his mind—the man’s natural talent that made the real Pelas so compelling and brought his darker side to wicked life. Tanis looked him in the eye as best he could, but he couldn’t make his eyes focus. It took everything he had in him to manage in the barest whisper, “…
no
.” 

Pelas threw the dagger so furiously that it sailed out of the cave to be swallowed by the storm. He slapped the boy hard then, the Healer all but forgotten. “
Tell me!
” 

The force of his intent was so powerful that Tanis felt the words rattle through him. His face flamed, his head screamed, and he worried he was going to throw up. He managed weakly, dizzily, in a tiny voice yet fueled with the power of his love for Phaedor, “You can’t…have it, sir.” 

Pelas’s eyes were fire upon him, scalding and merciless. “I will have it out of you in your blood then, stupid boy!” Pelas started dragging him across the cave. 

Tanis realized he was crying, though he couldn’t remember when the tears had started. “You’ll not have it…even if…if you kill me.” 

Pelas’s fiery eyes flashed. “Tis not death you should be fearing right now.” He threw the lad roughly to the floor.

Tanis closed his eyes and lay shivering in pain. He was determined not to betray the zanthyr. It occurred to him that Phaedor wouldn’t care in the least if Pelas knew of him, but Pelas had bled so many other confessions from him, Tanis vowed he would not get this one.
The zanthyr is sacred…and you cannot have his memory.

Pelas snatched him up again and started binding his wrist to the post—

In that moment, Medira reached the cave mouth. Weeping, she struggled to her feet and turned to look back at them. Even with the raging storm, Tanis heard her say through lips bloodied and broken, “Death…is only…the beginning.”

Then she threw herself off the cliff.

Pelas roared in outrage. He slung Tanis to the floor and surged after her, but there was no retrieving Medira for his dark pleasure. She was free.

The explosion of fury that followed was even stronger than what had come before. Tanis lay upon his side trying not to throw up as wave after wave of thunderous rage battered him, crushing through his chest. During each passing surge the lad couldn’t breathe. He managed only little gasps between the crests while his head exploded with pain and his stomach turned inside out.