The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  Tanis tugged at his ear. “It’s a variant trait on our world,” he said, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut about it. “I inherited it from my father.”

  Even Gadovan looked mildly taken aback. “That must come in handy.”

  “Your father has the trait also?” Jude asked. “Where is he now?”

  Tanis scrubbed at his temples. “It’s...complicated.” He turned a longing look towards the tavern. “Do you think we could—”

  “Yes, let’s get you something to eat.” Gadovan clapped a hand on his shoulder. “A cave troll couldn’t pack away as much food as you do.”

  Tanis instantly brightened. “You have cave trolls on your world?”

  They managed to make it to the tavern without Tanis giving the Eltanese any more reasons to wonder about him.

  About two dozen other travelers as varied in their garments as in their languages were seated at tables around the room, while another cluster, mostly of men, hovered around the bar. Several boys of ten or twelve dressed in blue thawbs cinched at the waist with jasper beads darted from table to table, serving drinks or meals.

  Gadovan spotted a crescent-shaped booth in the corner and started towards it, trailing his cousins. Tanis followed in the rear. He trolled the conversations as he passed, letting anything unimportant sift through the openings in his net, his attention only really catching at snippets of conversation that might have meaning or usefulness to their needs.

  Many of the inn’s guests were speaking Avataren, which he was picking up quickly by translating the thoughts of everyone around him, but just as many others were speaking the Common Tongue of the Middle Kingdoms, or more surprising still, Agasi, which he spoke fluently.

  By the time Tanis finished winding his way through the tables, unobtrusively listening in to both conversations and unguarded thoughts, Pelas had come up behind him.

  They slipped together into the booth alongside the Eltanese. Pelas waved over a boy and ordered them all drinks and something to eat. When the boy was heading off again, he told them quietly, “I paid handsomely to get us rooms here—even more than usual. Every inn in town is full.”

  “What’s the occasion?” Gadovan asked.

  “The Khashathra-pāvan is hosting a gala at his palace for the next several nights. Dignitaries are coming from the far corners of the world to attend it.”

  “A gala would be a good cover to allow us access to the weld,” Gadovan noted. “It’s probably in heavy use with people coming from all over.”

  “It’s also certain to be heavily guarded,” Pelas pointed out.

  As they kept talking, Tanis’s attention strayed to a man seated in the shadows across the room. The lad couldn’t see him well, but he could well see the direction of his gaze.

  There were a few women in the room, and to be sure, all of them were doing their best to stare at Pelas without appearing to stare at Pelas, but this man was staring openly at him—no, not just at Pelas but Tanis also.

  It wasn’t like everything about the stranger warned of peril, but something in his indolent slouch as he leaned back against the wall made Tanis think the man didn’t need to be obviously on his guard because he was always on his guard. And the way he held his glass under dangling fingers, with his arm draped along the edge of the table, the other hand resting on his leg, perhaps keeping it close to the brace of daggers at his hip...for some reason, this made Tanis suspect the man could probably move as fast as Pelas could.

  Then there was the tattooed line of dark symbols running from his forehead, down across one eye, only to vanish beneath his long, heavy beard. That tattoo didn’t exactly shout assassin, but it wasn’t exactly reassuring either.

  Finally there was the man’s mind, which was completely opaque to Tanis. He found this particularly unsettling.

  Have you cloaked your nature? Tanis asked Pelas while the latter was discussing possible ways they could get into the gala.

  Yes, always, he replied while continuing his conversation with the Eltanese. Why?

  The serving boy returned just then with their drinks and a stew made from spiced lentils. He placed it all on the table, along with a basket of toasted flatbread.

  Tanis waited until the boy left again to say quietly to Pelas, “That man keeps staring at you.”

  The Eltanese were smart enough not to all turn and look at once, though Gadovan casually lifted his gaze to view the room at large.

  Mat snorted. “Everyone stares at him.”

  Tanis shifted his gaze to Mat. “This is different.”

  Pelas cocked his head to the side. “What is it you sense?”

  “I’m not sure.” Tanis frowned, wishing he understood why everything about the stranger shouted with warning. “His thoughts are full of smoke.”

  Pelas considered this. Then he let his eyes travel to the stranger, and a smile hitched one corner of his mouth. “That’s interesting. He’s Vestian, and an Adept of their Sorceresy from the look of his tattoos.”

  “Mor’alir?” Tanis asked, feeling suddenly even more uneasy.

  “It’s hard to say. They don’t exactly announce the path they walk.” Pelas waved the serving boy back over to their table.

  He rushed up at once, looking extremely attentive. “Yes, natha?” he asked, using the respectful word for lord in Avataren.

  Pelas nodded to indicate the Vestian. “Give that man another of whatever he’s having and put it on my tab.”

  “At once, natha.” The boy bobbed and rushed off again.

  “What would a Vestian Adept be doing here?” Tanis asked in a low voice. Avatar and Vest weren’t on the best of terms on a good day, and an Adept from Vest would be considered the lowest of the low.

  “Possibly attending the gala, like everyone else?” Mat suggested reasonably.

  But Tanis wasn’t so sure.

  Across the room, the serving boy set a fresh drink down on the Vestian’s table and nodded back towards theirs.

  The Vestian lifted his glass to Pelas and smiled. His teeth were very white against his dark beard. Pelas saluted with his glass politely in return.

  Tanis felt sure something dark and sinister lurked behind the Vestian’s smile. The lad exhaled slowly. “I have a bad feeling about that guy.”

  Pelas was eying the Vestian quietly. “Purchasing a little goodwill never hurt anyone.”

  The Vestian was still watching them too, still smiling, still making Tanis feel all wormy inside.

  The lad muttered, “I’m not sure that guy would know goodwill if it punched him in the face.”

  “He does rather reek of stay-the-hell-away-from-me-if-you-know-what’s-good-for-you,” Jude said by way of consoling Tanis.

  “He’s just your type then, Jude.” Mat grinned.

  “So how are we getting into the gala?” Gadovan returned them to the matter at hand.

  Pelas sat back against his seat. “Getting into the gala won’t be a problem. Finding our way to the weld chamber once inside—”

  “Oh,” Tanis said, softly, yet the intensity beneath his realization turned every eye at the table to him.

  He lifted his gaze to meet theirs. “I know how we do it.”

  For he’d remembered at last where he’d heard the title, ‘Khashathra-pāvan of Pashmir....’ It was in Shadow, when Ean was recounting his experience with the Vestian Adept, Sheih, who had sidetracked him in Tambarré.

  Although actually a mor’alir Adept, Sheih had been using the cover of being an agent for the Khashathra-pāvan. Her duties were to procure the rarest of treasures on behalf of the Furie. Apparently his appetite for antiquities was as legendary as his collection of rare treasures, and he didn’t care what sort of person acquired them for him.

  “I know how to us get into the weld chamber.”

  Pelas saw the idea running through Tanis’s head, and his brows hiked halfway to his hairline. Are you sure about this, little spy?

  Not especially, but do you have a better idea?

  What does your sense
of Balance say?

  It’s not exactly a two-way conversation. Tanis shrugged minutely. All I can tell is, Balance isn’t currently disinclined.

  Very well, then. Pelas gave a decisive exhale and looked to the Eltanese. “We’re going to need new clothes.” He was up and off before any of them could question him.

  “Clothes?” Jude sounded bewildered.

  “It is a gala, Jude,” Mat said.

  Just about every pair of eyes in the room watched Pelas until he strode out the door, including the Vestian. Tanis was ready to warn his bond-brother if the man got up to follow, but the man stayed in his seat. He simply returned his attention to his drink and his eyes back to their table, where he discovered Tanis watching him.

  He gave the lad a dark smile.

  Tanis frowned at him.

  The Vestian winked in return. His eyes were the same smoky color as his thoughts.

  Meeting his gaze, Tanis had never been more certain of the need to keep their mission a secret, or to protect the priceless treasure he had strapped to his back. He was very glad his hand with its tell-tale rings was out of sight under the table.

  He knew the Vestian couldn’t read his mind any more than he could read the Vestian’s, but that didn’t make the man’s calculating smile any less unnerving.

  Mat muttered meanwhile, “He leads a charmed life, doesn’t he?” He was still staring after Pelas. His face looked slightly pinched.

  Tanis wasn’t so sure that getting put under a fifth-strand compulsion that forced you to mutilate Healers, being electrocuted, imprisoned, and made to think you’d lost all your power, being handed over to a clutch of revenants to be fed on for all eternity, or being nearly unmade after barely recovering from all of that earlier stuff, could quite be described as leading a charmed life, but he understood why Mat had said it.

  “Our uncle is like him,” Jude said through a contemplative exhale, to which both Gadovan and Mat grunted their agreement. “I mean, not like him, but you know.” He gave Tanis one of his endearing smiles.

  Just about everything about Jude was endearing, from the earnestness in his big blue eyes, to his tousled auburn hair that was always hanging in his face, to the dimples he got when he smiled.

  “It’s true though.” Mat clinked his glass against Jude’s. “Everything somehow just goes right for him. He’s been in so many near misses, and on collision courses with the inevitable, and in the crosshairs of dread-inspiring potentates who could squash the likes of you and me with naught but a hitched eyebrow and he’s never lost against a single one of them. He’s just that much smarter than everyone else. It’s not even worth it, going up against him. Doesn’t matter who you are. You can’t win.”

  “You sure you’re talking about our uncle and not his?” Gadovan said with a wink at Tanis.

  “Well, they’re unlikely allies for a reason, I guess,” Jude said into his drink, to which the other two aimed him pointed stares, like Jude shouldn’t have said that. And for once, they kept their private thoughts utterly private.

  Forty-six

  “The timeline is not what they think it is.”

  –Aziah Vornamundi,

  Archimandrite of the Quorum of The Sixth Truth

  Waves lapped languidly at Ean’s knees and a bright sun warmed his skin as he sloshed through the ocean beneath an azure sky with his feet sinking in cool sand and a breeze teasing his hair.

  His pattern of consequence spread for miles in every direction.

  The aqua sea made a perfect canvas to host the pattern’s countless arabesques, and Rafael, being Rafael, had made the sea the same depth throughout, so that Ean might walk the entire length of each thread to better study its design.

  Time being what it was in Shadow—that is, nonexistent unless the Warlocks imposed change upon their varying worlds—Ean had no idea how long they’d spent with Sinárr trying to work out the location of the Shaido dō Avinashaya daré Bhasaguhāni, which they were calling the Shaido archives for short and where the Quorum of the Sixth Truth had apparently sequestered their sacred history.

  It was a history that, from everything Ean had gleaned, just possibly told an origin story about the fateful tear in Alorin’s fabric that had opened a portal between Chaos and the Realms of Light—the very tear Björn had created T’khendar to plug.

  In the journal Ean had taken from Shail, the Archimandrite described an ‘Other’ who had ‘tumbled their order into the maelstrom of his plans.’ In reading the Archimandrite’s description of the Other, Ean began to suspect he was a Warlock. But there were problems with this theory.

  One, if Warlocks had known how to tear the fabric of the realm—if they’d been capable of the task themselves—they could’ve returned from Shadow at any point; yet it had taken an immortal like Shail to bring them back.

  Two, what motivation would a Warlock have for tearing the aether between Chaos and the Realms of Light?

  Still, it couldn’t be a coincidence. Here was evidence of an entity—who sounded an awful lot like a Warlock—directly connected to a cataclysmic event of momentous consequence, and which consequence could itself very well have been a direct result of the tearing of the fabric.

  The third problem with Ean’s theory was that the second cataclysm, to which the Archimandrite had referred, had occurred after the entire race of Warlocks had been expelled from the realm.

  It was a blink of an eye by cosmic accounting, yet Ean couldn’t see how the events could be directly related. Even so, he felt sure that they were.

  The cosmic Balance was a force of cause and consequence, not a force of reason. Balance was a massive pendulum swinging between order and chaos, and even slight shifts in one direction could cause immense ramifications in the other.

  Oddly, to discover that this effort to understand had been Shail’s private obsession for centuries...Ean almost wanted him to succeed at it. Mankind would surely benefit from the understanding, and Shail had apparently made progress where no one else had.

  But Ean knew the immortal too well. Whatever truths he learned, Shail would only use them to cause more chaos and disorder.

  Darshan had spoken of their purpose as a divine calling. Pelas talked of it as one that might be claimed or discarded on their own determinism—one he had disavowed. Shail, however, appeared to revel in the chaos of destruction.

  Ean was eager to get back to Alorin and find the Shaido archives—he felt certain that doing so would significantly unbalance the field—but Rafael had more work to do on his project for Tanis before they could return, so Ean was using the time to study his pattern of consequence.

  His personal view of the mortal tapestry was very like that of the ocean as seen from the deck of a ship. He would never have the bird’s eye view of the design enjoyed by immortals such as Phaedor and Pelas—not even there in Shadow could he conceive of it. He was, after all, part of the tapestry.

  Yet from his lateral vantage, he could study the pattern’s currents, note the effects of cause and consequence upon its waves, and estimate the distance to the horizon. He could isolate particular strands, and study how choices influenced their design.

  Moving slowly through the placid waters, Ean looked for changes minute and gross, the products of his efforts to unbalance the field in their favor; and he searched for clues showing him which threads he should target next in order to achieve the same.

  Yet the longer he walked the threads, the more it wasn’t their design that intrigued him so much as the personality he began to perceive associated with each.

  He’d isolated two interwoven threads that bound many others to them and was now walking the labyrinth of their microcosmic pattern, trying to get a sense of the Weavers of those threads, feeling traces of human emotion, letting the pattern’s energy caress his thoughts while his mind studied that selfsame energy.

  There were no books outlining this process. Arion had never written in his journals about how to isolate threads in the pattern. Ean was navigating uncharted
waters, literally miles from any shore, letting instinct guide him through the maze of the threads themselves.

  He’d quickly discovered that chasing perceptions only drove them further from mind, but if he let his mind wander, if he spent as much time feeling the silken water around his legs and Rafael’s sun on his skin as he did perceiving the energy of the thread he was following...

  Thoughts floated up to him, gathered around him like tiny fish reflecting bright visions. One was a memory that made him smile...

  %

  “Isn’t there a Veneisean Virtue about not coveting your brother’s wife?”

  Ean turned from watching his seventeen-year-old brother Trell trying to show Alyneri how to shoot a bow and arrow to glare at his blood-brother, Creighton Khelspath, instead. “Alyneri isn’t Trell’s wife.”

  “His betrothed, then,” Creighton corrected with a grin.

  Ean slumped back against the tree they were sitting under. A broad expanse of meadow separated the two boys from the rest of the hunting party. The hunt itself would commence later that afternoon. For the moment, the lords and ladies of the court were enjoying themselves on other pursuits beneath the bright spring sun: gaming, walking the river’s edge, picnicking in the meadow...flirting with the girl of Ean’s particular interest.

  Closest to where he sat brooding, his mother and father were entertaining in the shade of the royal pavilion. Beyond them, a pair of governesses were trying to corral the adolescent children of the court, including Tad val Mallonwey and the Lady Melisandre’s ward, Tanis, all of whom were shouting loudly about wanting to play pirates in the river.

  Ean might’ve found lots of other people to watch, but he couldn’t stop staring at Trell, who was now standing close behind Alyneri with his arms encircling her, showing her how to hold the bow. The wind was tossing Trell’s dark hair and the sun was showing off his royal blue coat with all those absurd silver buttons. The Kingdom Blade he now wore all the time was glinting painfully into Ean’s eyes. He looked like a total ass.

  “As if she doesn’t know how to hold a bow,” Ean grumbled. He’d seen Alyneri shoot a bow in the yard before.