The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  They’d just started towards the pavilion when Björn emerged from the shadows of the largest structure. “Ah, Tanis, Pelas. Good morning to you both.”

  Tanis’s uncle wore a sapphire coat cut in the same style as theirs. The coat’s color made the aquamarine stone in his oath ring sparkle all the more brightly on his middle finger. “I hoped you both might be willing to sit in on my council this morning.”

  Tanis glanced at Pelas, who’d adopted a neutral expression but was still clearly surrounded by a cloud of discontent. “We would be honored, sir.”

  “The honor is mine, nephew. I hear marvelous things about your accomplishments.”

  Tanis joined his uncle’s side as they headed towards the pavilion, but he glanced over his shoulder to be sure Pelas was following. “I’m not sure my mother can be trusted not to embellish, sir.”

  “Oh, no,” Björn angled him a look, “it’s not Isabel who told me. But you’re quite right,” he added with a smile. “When it comes to their beloved sons, mothers can be trusted only to exaggerate.”

  Tanis wanted to ask who his uncle had been talking with about him if not his mother, but good manners and some inkling that he might not like the answer encouraged him against it.

  Björn led them into the shadows of the largest pavilion, where the desert air became noticeably cooler. Dagmar was just then coming towards them between two rows of obsidian columns. Björn paused to wait for him.

  “I see you found them,” the Vestal remarked as he neared.

  “Were they lost?”

  “They’re late if they weren’t.”

  Björn pushed hands in his pockets. “I didn’t set a timer on my invitation, brother. I’m afraid you’ll have to remonstrate me.”

  “As if that would make any difference. You’ll still do whatever you choose, however you choose to do it.”

  Björn eyed him amusedly. “You can’t fashion an army out of nonconformists and rebels and expect them to obey instructions.”

  “Yes, so you’re always telling me.”

  “Good morning, Your Excellency.” Tanis greeted Dagmar brightly. “I have so many questions about nodes. Especially twisted ones.”

  Dagmar glanced to Björn. “Have you been talking to this boy already?”

  Björn shook his head no, which was true, though Tanis thought his smile somehow said otherwise.

  Dagmar regarded Tanis suspiciously. “You must indeed be your mother’s son.”

  “Yes. Phaedor says that a lot, sir.”

  Dagmar grunted. “Far be it from me to disagree with your uncle’s zanthyr.”

  “I applaud your wisdom, sir.”

  Dagmar chuckled and looked back to Björn. “I like this boy.”

  Björn laid a hand on Tanis’s shoulder to set them in motion again. “Have Gadovan and the others arrived?”

  “Just.”

  “Then we’re all assembled. Good.” He led the way through the open-air pavilion, down some steps and into a smaller, recessed gallery, whose arcade overlooked the desert to the north. A long table dominated the center of the space. Three men were already standing around one end of it.

  Tanis almost didn’t recognize them, for they’d shaved their beards and had combed and styled their hair, and none of them seemed the least bit dusty.

  “Gentlemen, good morning.” Björn nodded to Gadovan, Mathias and Jude. He and Dagmar stopped in the middle of the table, while Tanis and a still-brooding Pelas continued around to the other side.

  Whereupon, Björn pressed fingertips to the obsidian tabletop and got straight to the point. “Pelas, do you know what it is we’re doing here?”

  Pelas cast a sidelong eye down the line that was Tanis and the three Eltanese near the end. “I imagine you’re attempting to stop us from unmaking the world.”

  “Righting the Balance for all of the worlds,” Tanis said quietly, somehow knowing it true.

  Dagmar turned a flat look to his oath-brother. “You have been talking to this boy.”

  Björn met Dagmar’s gaze with smiling eyes before looking back to Pelas. “Preventing your brothers from making things worse—yes, this is definitely part of it. But the matter is as broad as the mortal tapestry is long. There isn’t a single battle that represents it but a hundred, a thousand being played out every day.”

  Pelas traced an eyebrow with his finger. “So you’re saying that Rinokh’s attempt to unmake this world—”

  “Is one small battle, yes. You take my meaning, Pelas.”

  “All right. You have me intrigued.”

  Björn included all of them in his gaze as he said, “Righting the Balance in the Realms of Light,” and he cast an approving look at Tanis. “That is our mission. But how do we go about it?”

  Everyone seemed stumped by this question.

  “Tanis, what would you do?”

  Tanis’s eyes got instantly rounder. “You mean...if I was trying to solve it?”

  Björn nodded.

  Thank the Time Fathers he didn’t ask me that question! Jude thought a little too loudly for Tanis not to overhear. Mathias elbowed him.

  Tanis felt a tad under-qualified to answer existential cosmic questions affecting billions of living souls. He was suddenly very aware of being the youngest person at the table, in more than a few cases by many centuries.

  He looked uncertainly between his uncle and Dagmar. “I guess...I would need to find out what caused the Balance to go awry to begin with, if I wanted to truly solve the problem.”

  Dagmar grunted—with approval or disagreement, Tanis couldn’t quite discern.

  “That would be a promising start,” his uncle agreed. “I imagine you have some theories. Care to share them with us?”

  Wow, he’s really putting the poor lad on the spot, Jude thought sympathetically.

  Better him than us, Mathias returned.

  Tanis heard Pelas mentally chuckling and knew his bond-brother had overheard the Eltanese also. The lad cast him a sooty look. You’re not being very helpful.

  The Malorin’athgul was wearing the ghost of a smile. How does your uncle know about this theory of yours when I still don’t? He gave him a mental nudge. Go on, then. Let’s hear it.

  Tanis glanced to the Eltanese, wetted his lips and said, “The maestros at the Sormitáge teach that the Adept Wars drove the realm out of Balance, but I don’t believe that’s the cause.”

  Mathias cleared his throat. “No offence but aren’t they the cause?” and he nodded to Pelas.

  Tanis looked to Pelas, then to his uncle, where his gaze lingered for a breath longer, then back to Mathias. “The Malorin’athgul can’t be the cause any more than the creation of T’khendar can be the cause, because T’khendar wouldn’t have been needed, and Pelas and his brothers wouldn’t have found our world to begin with, if the cosmic Balance hadn’t already shifted.”

  “Bravo, Tanis,” his uncle murmured.

  Tanis flushed warmly from head to toe.

  Dagmar grunted again.

  Pelas crossed his arms, curious now. “So what caused the initial shift?”

  Björn pushed hands in his pockets and looked around at those assembled. “The timeframe is inexact, but the incidents which brought unbalance to the Realms of Light are well documented.”

  A startled Gadovan choked out, “Where, my lord?”

  Dagmar tapped the side of his own head but nodded meaningfully towards Björn.

  “In tracing the imbalance back through the centuries,” Björn told them, “it became apparent to me that the decline initially affected elae’s fifth strand. Long before any other strand showed symptoms of degeneration, fifth strand Adepts had all but vanished from the realm. Sadly, no one thought to ask why at the time, for Mankind was simply relieved to be free of the dominion of the Quorum’s long hand upon the world, and their alliance with the Warlocks of Shadow.”

  Björn met each one of their gazes pointedly. “But I want you all to ask yourselves now: why did the decline begin with Adepts of the
fifth? Because that answer is intimately key to solving this riddle.”

  Is he going to be quizzing us on this later? Jude asked earnestly and with more than a little unease.

  Mathias turned him a will-you-shut-up? stare.

  Trying not to be too distracted by the Eltanese, whose supposedly private mental conversations were at least entertaining, Tanis admitted to his uncle, “I did have one other thought I’ve been tossing about, sir.”

  Björn’s eyes fairly danced. “I am fain to hear it, Tanis.”

  Yes, do share it with us, little spy. Pelas’s mental voice held a wry edge. The lad was relieved to see Pelas finally reclaiming his humor.

  “I got the idea during a conversation I was having with Mérethe—she’s an Avieth bound to Sinárr,” and Tanis added for the benefit of the Eltanese, “he’s a Warlock I know. Anyway,” he pressed on as the Nodefinders were blinking at him, “it occurred to me that when our Maker originally made the Realms of Light, he gave Warlocks free access to them.”

  Björn exhaled a decisive breath. “He did indeed.”

  “I’m not sure what that has to do with the decline of the fifth, if anything,” Tanis admitted, “but I think the fact that the Warlocks have been sealed out and the nodes to Shadow twisted off might have something to do with the Realms of Light falling out of Balance.”

  Dagmar aimed an accusatory stare at Björn.

  The latter blessed Tanis with an admiring smile. “Your instincts guide you true, Tanis. Doubtless they’ll guide you to the solution we also have seen.”

  Tanis held his gaze, radiating apprehension and anticipation both, and braved, “We have to reopen the welds to Shadow.”

  “Oh, so nothing too significant then.” Mathias turned a wide-eyed stare at his cousins.

  Pelas crossed his arms, considering all he’d heard. “And what’s our role in this?”

  Still holding his uncle’s gaze and reading the truth therein, Tanis swallowed. “We’re the ones who are going to open them.”

  Dagmar threw up his hands and walked towards a credenza where several decanters of chilled wine were clearly beckoning.

  Pelas shifted his copper eyes to Björn. “Can it actually be done? Those ley lines have been dead for millennia.”

  Björn arched brows over a weighty exhale. “Opening them? No. You’ll have to rebuild them. Dredge new ley lines back to the original welds and charge the connections newly.”

  That’s why he’s had us working on the grid! Jude said with awe.

  Shut up, Jude! Mathias and Gadovan growled together. Gadovan’s command must’ve been accompanied by a faint flow of elae, for Jude cringed as if someone had just clapped him on the back of the head.

  “It’s not as bad as you might think.” Dagmar returned carrying two goblets of wine. He set one on the table for Björn and sipped from the other. “The weld points themselves still exist. All that’s needed is four Nodefinders with the requisite skill to dredge the correct pattern of alignment, and an immortal, such as yourself, Pelas, willing to power the connection once the channels are ready.”

  Oh, sure, that’s all. Jude sounded like he desperately needed a drink. He was staring longingly at Dagmar’s wine.

  “How many welds do we have to open, my lord?” Mathias asked.

  “Good question, Mathias. In this, Cephrael has given us a boon.” Björn directed their attention to the air above the table, where the illusion of a spiral of worlds appeared like pearls strung around a thick central core. “This is the alignment of the Realms of Light. Alorin is here,” and he indicated the topmost world of the spiral. “Eltanin is roughly here.” He indicated a section near the middle.

  “The realms are connected through a core of welds.” A webwork of light suddenly speared throughout the spiral.

  “The Twenty-First Esoteric tells us that ‘Actuality is monitored by the wielder’s point of view. Reality is monitored by collective thought agreement.’”

  Björn opened his palms to the world around them. “Reality gives us planets, moons and stars.” He motioned to the spiral. “Actuality gives us an interconnected spiral of worlds. Both are true.”

  Björn made the illusion of the spiral spin slowly around its core. “In reality, the realms are spread apart—held apart by the gravitation of planets and stars. In actuality, they sit within a framework of our Maker’s universe, connected aetherically by postulated bindings and surrounded by the nothingness of Shadow.”

  He shifted his gaze to Tanis. “Tell us what is most important to know about Shadow, nephew.”

  Tanis glanced uncertainly to the Eltanese. “It’s a dimension without time or space. It exists nowhere and everywhere.”

  “Nowhere and everywhere.” His uncle nodded his approval. “Therefore, to your question, Mathias, we need only open enough welds into Shadow so as to reestablish the aetheric connection between the dimension and the Realms of Light, for once the channel is fully open from a few worlds, it will be open to all worlds.”

  “How will we know when we’ve opened enough welds, my lord?” Gadovan asked.

  “When the two energies start flowing.” Tanis offered the answer as it instantly came to him, but then, seeing all of the Eltanese staring at him, he backpedaled towards humility. “I mean...I would guess that’s what we’re going for.” He looked to his uncle for confirmation.

  Dagmar grunted again.

  Who is this boy? Jude inquired with wonder loud in his thoughts. Mathias gave him a long-suffering stare.

  Björn meanwhile smiled at Tanis. “You have the right of it, nephew.”

  “Two energies?” Gadovan shifted his gaze between Tanis and Björn.

  Björn nodded to Tanis. “Tell them what you understand of these energies, Tanis.”

  Tanis darted another look at the Eltanese, really hoping they didn’t think he was showing off. Even his most innocent interactions with students and maestros at the Sormitáge had left him isolated and friendless.

  Tanis thought about his binding with Sinárr, as well as everything else he’d learned about the laws of energy while in Shadow. “Deyjiin and elae...” he motioned with his hands to represent each, “when balanced, the two energies develop an affinity and have a sort of...interchange. They create a flow between them.”

  “Begging your lordship’s pardon,” Mathias raised his hand while looking from Tanis to Björn and back again, “but how do you know all of this, lad?”

  “Tanis just spent several months in Shadow building worlds with a Warlock.” Björn said this like it was a perfectly reasonable use of one’s holiday.

  “Oh...right then.” Jude turned a wide-eyed look at Gadovan, while Mathias stared at Tanis like some new and strange life form.

  “There’s a piece missing.” Pelas drew Björn’s gaze back to him, along with everyone else’s.

  Björn nodded for Pelas to continue his thought.

  “The whole thing will collapse in on itself unless we find a way to stabilize it.”

  “Oh, of course.” Tanis pushed his hair back with both hands and looked in understanding to Pelas. “You need someone to frame Shadow also.”

  “Frame Shadow? Do you mean in terms of Absolute Being?” Gadovan seemed to be the only one of the Eltanese actually tracking with the conversation.

  “Yes, exactly that.” Pelas held a hand towards Björn’s illusion. “With your permission?”

  The latter accommodatingly banished the string of worlds.

  Pelas put up his own illusion, starting with a star. “This is a weld.” He glanced at the Eltanese while he made four lines of light angle laterally out of the star. They formed a pyramid turned on its side, with the weld as its capstone. “These are the ley lines you’ll need to map from the weld into Shadow.”

  He connected each end of the four ley lines, drawing a square of light, forming the pyramid’s upright base. It roughly resembled the shape of a door. “These points,” and he indicated the base lines, “must be framed in Shadow so as to provide a base
for the connection of energy and allow a flow.”

  “I could not have described it better myself.” Björn nodded gratefully to Pelas for his diagram. “Last of all, after each ley line is remapped, a Warlock needs to test the channel from Shadow to ensure it does, actually, allow him to pass from Shadow into the realm.”

  Tanis suddenly connected all of his own mental ley lines and felt a portentous chill race down his spine.

  His uncle must’ve perceived the sudden shift in his thoughts, for he settled Tanis a disquieting smile. “Yes, nephew. You begin to see...you are uniquely suited to this task.”

  What he didn’t say, but which Tanis heard all the same, was, Almost as if Cephrael himself had been guiding you the while.

  Tanis went a little weak in the knees.

  Pelas chuckled across their bond, We will never hear the end of this from Rafael. He’s particularly insufferable when his theories are proven out.

  Dagmar downed the last of his wine and set his goblet on the table with finality. “You will not go unopposed. Many factions have a vested interest in keeping the Warlocks out of the Realms of Light.”

  “While others would be gatekeepers,” Björn added, “and not so keen to have their power undermined.”

  “My brother Shail, for instance,” Pelas surmised.

  Dagmar grunted to this truth. “And then there are those who won’t be corralled at the gates, but will still oppose opening them to everyone else.”

  “I would think that to be Baelfeir,” said a new voice from behind them. “That is, if Rafael has surmised Baelfeir’s aims correctly.”

  Tanis turned to see his mother and Prince Ean coming towards them. The prince looked himself again, wearing a dark blue jacket, while his mother’s dress shimmered with the same aqua hue as Tanis’s coat. She walked with one hand on Ean’s arm and the other around a Merdanti staff. Tanis somehow knew instinctively that Phaedor had made it for her.

  “Ah, yes, Baelfeir.” Something in Björn’s tone drew Tanis’s gaze quickly back to his uncle. He winked at the lad. “We surely mustn’t forget the self-titled Lord of All Warlocks.”

  Isabel released Ean’s arm and went to greet her brother with a kiss on both cheeks. “Brother.”