Paths of Alir (A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book 3)

by Melissa McPhail

  Even as the killing pattern dissipated around her in a sharp tingle of energy, Isabel cast a net at Dore. He threw himself backwards and spidered away beneath it, but its edges sliced him—she’d made them sharp, so he would feel the sting of her displeasure as he cowered—and thin rivulets of blood sprouted across his face and neck. He seared the net out of the air with the fourth—to her eyes a sizzle of brilliance, but a charred residue traveled away on the currents.

  Isabel’s tolerance finally reached its end. She’d given Dore his chance, but she didn’t possess the drachwyr’s patience for toying with prey.

  A single thought raised an impenetrable shield around Ean’s form. A wave of her staff cleansed the currents of Dore’s noxious residue. Then she turned her blindfolded gaze on Dore himself.

  He saw this and scrambled back and away, a crab fleeing the incoming tide.

  Isabel looked into the space of Dore’s mind and saw the scoria of a being feeding on the energies of hate and harm; she saw how elae avoided him—he had to summon it forth, for the negative charge of his consciousness repelled the lifeforce now.

  Once, she’d hesitated to claim Dore’s life.

  No longer.

  Isabel called the fifth, and the currents swelled towards her. She twirled her staff like a baton overhead—with so much of the fifth coursing through the talisman, the solid stone weapon felt as light as a twig. She opened her mind to frame her intent—

  “I wouldn’t do that!” Dore’s voice introduced discord into elae’s rushing song, a new and jarring wavelength.

  Isabel spun her staff overhead, less a lasso than a building cyclone, and pinned Dore with her invisible gaze. No doubt he’d deduced the purpose of her working from the way the currents swelled to await her will. Already visions of intent stacked within her consciousness, eager for release.

  Dore took a tentative step backwards. “I have him, you see. Do you see?” He licked his lips and stared at her with a wild, sharp gaze. “You see much, even blindfolded. But do you see this?” He took another step away from her, one step closer to the node.

  She fanned her consciousness around the room. She did see it then. A gossamer thread extended from Dore’s labyrinth—from Ean—back to the wielder. He had hold of the pattern, and what he could do with that simple thread…

  Her staff stilled in her hand. She lowered her arm.

  Dore’s black eyes gleamed. “He’s him, isn’t he?” He licked his lips and nodded towards Ean’s crumpled form as he took another step in retreat. His gaze hid in the shadows of his brow the way his soul cowered in the desiccated husk of his body, but Isabel felt the glee he now radiated. “Arion. He’s Arion Returned—of course he is, you needn’t admit it.”

  Isabel set her staff down in front of her and interwove her fingers around the smooth stone. In her mind, she prepared the knife to sever the thread Dore still held. She’d no doubt he meant to step across the node and pull the thread along with him, no matter what mercy he bargained. It would rip the labyrinth out of Ean’s mind and take his sanity with it.

  “Don’t try to stop me!” Dore licked his lips, the flicker of a pink tongue across pale flesh. Two steps more and he’d be across the node. “Stay away!” He held up his hand and shook the ethereal thread he held in warning. Then he took that final step.

  Isabel cut the thread and simultaneously threw one of her own. She murmured darkly, “Run, Dore Madden.”

  Dore vanished across the node.

  ***

  Işak’getirmek stumbled awkwardly through the frostbitten night. His bad leg throbbed a continual reprimand, while his mind had become a ravaged field, thick with the chaff of unraveling patterns. These blew against Dore’s compulsive spells and churned into bristly muck. Thinking at all was painful. Işak wanted only to rest, or better yet to lie down and die, but desperation drove him forth—for most of all, he wanted to distance himself from Ean.

  Snowflakes floated soundlessly down, disturbed from their rest in the treetops by his rough passing. Deeper snow slowed his progress, and an icy, contemptuous wind stole what breath the steep mountain left to him, but he felt little of these torments, for no worldly chill could approximate the cold radiating out of the raw reaches of his soul.

  He knew the truth now.

  No more suspicions, suppositions, only certainty: Dore Madden had known his identity from the moment he’d claimed him in N’ghorra—had claimed him because of his family name, adding insult to the pernicious injury of imprisonment for the inexcusable wrong of royal birth.

  Claiming him as his bright new toy, Dore had twisted and contorted Işak’s mind with compulsion, beaten his will to a pulp, and battened any memory of his true identity behind patterns of concealment. Finally, in his most heinous act of degradation, he’d set Işak against his own brother, the final test of his subjugation, a task meant to consume the last vestiges of Işak’s honor.

  But Işak had failed that test.

  And he continued to fail it. This might’ve been his only consolation as he drove himself through the night fleeing his youngest brother—who had amazingly, incredibly, become a wielder possibly more powerful than Dore.

  But he couldn’t flee the flood of memories swarming his mind.

  Dore’s iron doors of concealment had been opened, and now Işak struggled to stay afloat amid the deluge of memory—everything he was and much that had been done to break him came flooding back on a tide of understanding. Even before N’ghorra, Viernan hal’Jaitar had begun the process of stripping away his honor, there in the hollow chambers beneath Tal’Shira. Işak shuddered now to remember those days, darker moments even than his penitence in the salt mines.

  They’d all tried to break him—Radov, hal’Jaitar, the butchers of N’ghorra, Dore Madden—yet none of them had truly accomplished the deed. But what did honor matter when Dore still imprisoned his mind? All Ean had accomplished was to prolong an inevitable end, for Dore had bound him body and soul.

  Işak knew the moment Dore arrived at Tyr’kharta, for the wielder’s unwelcome heat suddenly filled his mind, as palpable as opening a curtain to the strong midday sun. Of course Dore would’ve known his wards around Tyr’kharta had been breached. Of course he would’ve come. And the moment he arrived, he would’ve known Işak had failed. Soon he would come in search of him.

  Işak ran now as much from Ean as from Dore.

  That he ran at all testified to Ean’s having accomplished something with his unworking. He was climbing awkwardly up a cliff face, using the sparse trees to aid him, when he felt Dore’s sudden fury flare through the bond. His muscles spasmed, his bad leg collapsed beneath him, and he lost his hold upon the tree. He fell backwards through the night with wind and darkness an ill support. Then he hit.

  Snow erupted around him, and he sank deeply into the drift. Buried rock scraped one leg, bringing new fire, and the compulsion he’d been holding off with naught but the force of his will set back in with a vengeance, making him violently ill.

  Even had he the will to move then, Işak couldn’t have managed it. His feet were wedged too deeply in, and his leg was soon a throbbing agony. Perhaps he could’ve worked a pattern to free himself, but to what purpose? Dore was already coming for him.

  Işak exhaled a shuddering breath and lay shivering in the damp snow, staring up into the heavens. The stars swirled dizzily above him.

  He wasn’t sure what was worse: the strange half-life of amnesia that he’d lived in since Dore had plucked him from the salt mines, recalling nothing of himself, only that something important had been lost; or remembering the fullness of his life with vivid clarity and knowing everything they had taken from him.

  Amnesia almost seemed a more compassionate path.

  He heard Dore approaching long before the wielder arrived, for the man made the noise of an infernal beast and cursed profligately about the inconvenience. Işak admitted there was no easy way to get to where he lay beneath the mountain’s rough edge, no node to transport Dore in
comfort and warmth. Odd that he hadn’t sent Raliax to claim him, but Işak supposed that would’ve delayed his punishment, and Dore felt punishment must be meted immediately after the transgression, as if a man possessed the same incontinent memory as a miscreant dog.

  By the time Dore finally reached him, Işak could no longer feel either of his legs, and the queasiness in his stomach had been honed into a sharp ache. Dore stopped above him, and Işak saw in the moonlight that the wielder had undergone some kind of battle, for his clothes were singed and his flesh crossed with lines of blood. He hadn’t imagined it possible to make the man look more like the walking dead.

  The night had held many surprises so far.

  Malice glinted in Dore’s black eyes as he stared down at Işak. He licked blood and spittle from his lips. “I see that I must teach you more strenuously to understand the cost of failure.”

  And he proceeded to do that very thing.

  Two

  “Let not your home be a place, unless it is a place found solely in your mind and heart.”

  – The Sormitáge Scholar D’Nofrio of Rogue

  Home.

  All the days Tanis and the zanthyr were descending from the icy reaches of the mountain pass, the lad tried to process the word.

  Home.

  The way the zanthyr had said the word implied mystery and majesty…even a grave serenity, but home brought a different picture to Tanis’s mind. To him, home meant long days in Her Grace’s infirmary, rewards of Mistress Hibbert’s plum tarts, and Farshideh’s smile, which forgave all transgressions. He was having difficulty reconciling his memories of growing up at Fersthaven with jutting, snow-capped peaks and a lush valley bordering the sea.

  Yet for all that Tanis’s sense of home didn’t quite mesh with the zanthyr’s pronouncement, excitement filled him—and anticipation, and even a touch of uncertainty. He couldn’t help wondering if somewhere among the deep, tall pines, somewhere near the shore…would he find a beach covered in pebbles that rumbled with the waves? A small part of him dared hope that his mother might be there.

  As they made their way down from the snowbound reaches, Tanis saw again the shapes he’d noticed from their high vantage, only now he could never mistake them for sheep. Though still distant, the herd of silver-white horses milled in graceful silence, their gilded manes streaming like molten sunlight as they pranced and played.

  Tanis spun a look to the zanthyr. “My lord…are those Hallovians?”

  “Your mother raised them,” Phaedor replied without turning, “but in her absence, the herd has grown wild.”

  Tanis turned back to the horses. Hallovians commanded a king’s ransom in price most anywhere in the realm, and Tanis couldn’t count the number of horses that dotted the distant meadow.

  Eventually they traded icy trails for rolling hills, then hills for a forest of bare-limbed elms, black oaks and gigantic evergreen hemlocks. The zanthyr led them unerringly through this ancient forest, oftentimes reclining on his horse with eyes closed, letting the animal chose the way. The only sounds were the steady plodding of the horses’ hooves, the wind scraping the winter-bare trees, and the occasional foraging animal.

  In such moments of enduring silence, Tanis missed Pelas almost desperately. He missed Pelas’s passion to experience everything their realm had to offer; he missed his charismatic brilliance of character and his irrepressible curiosity. In contrast, the zanthyr’s deep, introspective silence made Phaedor seem ever remote, ever mysterious. Ironically, Tanis understood their innate compositions to be just the opposite: Phaedor was tied to the life of the realm, and Pelas to its demise.

  The lad was pondering this grim paradox when he glimpsed a pale structure looming in the distance and noted that Phaedor’s horse was heading towards it. Soon they were riding beneath a six-armed archway forming the skeleton of a dome perhaps thirty feet across. Carved patterns covered every inch of the alabaster arches.

  Tanis leaned back in his saddle and craned his neck to view the top of the dome where the arches would cross, but too many tree limbs obscured their joining. He estimated the arches hovered at least fifty feet high, however.

  He was still staring upwards as they passed beneath the dome’s center, whereupon he saw a brief flash amid the fir limbs and felt a static current charge through the air. Tanis got the distinctly uncomfortable impression that the arch had just…woken. He looked down to see the hairs rising on his arms.

  “Uh…my lord…what is this…thing?”

  Phaedor was reclining on his steed with both hands clasped behind his head and his booted feet propped on his horse’s withers. Tanis had no idea how he rode like that without falling off.

  “Your father made it,” the zanthyr remarked with eyes closed.

  “My—my father made it?” Excitement thrilled through the lad upon hearing a reference to his mysterious and intriguing father. Then he really heard what Phaedor had said. “Wait, my father made it?”

  Tanis would’ve pressed Phaedor for more information in that moment except that the energy swirling within the arches was making him feel squashed—never mind the annoying buzzing in his ears—and he noted uncomfortably that the static charge swirling the air was causing the standing hairs on his arms to ripple like wheat in the wind.

  Hunching his shoulders with a grimace, the lad pressed, “Um…why is it humming?”

  The zanthyr opened one eye to cast him an amused look. “That is the third strand you feel, Truthreader.”

  “Well and good, but what’s it doing?”

  Phaedor shut his eyes again. “Its job.”

  Tanis glared at him. “Which is…?”

  “You might think of the dome as the guardian of this valley.” But beyond this, Phaedor would say no more.

  The sun was hanging low in the west when Tanis started hearing snatches of a subtle roar that could only be crashing waves. They emerged from the forest atop a grassy hill, where a view spread before them. The lad caught his breath and turned the zanthyr a winsome grin.

  The hillside swept down to a line of cliffs crowned by a stately manor and outbuildings, and beyond these, the sea. Built of lustrous limestone and roofed steeply in slate, the manor embellished the cliff with such elegance that the view would surely have been diminished without it.

  “The Villa Serafina.” The zanthyr’s tone held that same wistful timbre from before, a tone Tanis couldn’t quite interpret. Phaedor turned the lad a gentle eye. “Your mother’s home—and yours.”

  Tanis smiled wondrously upon the scene. To think his home could be so beautiful. “So…are you going to tell me now where we are, my lord?”

  “On the Caladrian Coast.”

  “Which is where, exactly?”

  Phaedor shook his head. “Have you learned nothing of geography, Truthreader? Caladria lies along the southern coast of Agasan.”

  “So I am Agasi!” The words burst out quite without warning. He’d wondered for so long about his heritage. Finally knowing the truth brought a sudden warmth to the otherwise chill day.

  Phaedor looked bemused. “Was this not always apparent?”

  “Not to me.” Tanis stared flatly at him. “But since you’ve clearly known all along, I feel obliged to point out that you might’ve mentioned it sooner, my lord.”

  Phaedor cast him a shadowy grin and led away down the hill.

  They entered the grounds through a carved stone archway and followed the curving drive past an orchard, a carriage house and then around to the stables. The grounds were well tended, the empty stables stocked with hay and grain, but to Tanis’s growing disappointment, no one seemed about. Their only salutation came from the ever–crashing waves.

  By the time they’d tended to their horses, the sun was melting into a mercuric sea. Toting his packs and feeling out of place, Tanis followed Phaedor into the silent manor, across marble floors and up a grand, curving staircase. The zanthyr sent the fourth into the lamps, and the manor blossomed with light, but the lad still felt odd traip
sing through such a palatial home with no one to greet him, like a trespasser sneaking in while the family was away.

  Two complete turns of the wide staircase brought them to a carpeted landing. The zanthyr led Tanis down a hall and into a corner bedroom paneled in blue silk. A massive canopy bed dominated one wall. The drapes of its rich brocade reflected deeper hues of blue.

  “This is your room, lad.” The zanthyr walked to the windows as Tanis was staring at the red-lacquered furniture, whose finish crackled with gold. “Tonight we’ll forage for ourselves. By the morning, your staff will have arrived.”

  Tanis looked around the room—his room—and decided it was all quite surreal, being there in his mother’s house—his house—surrounded by her things—apparently his things—and with the zanthyr as his housemate.

  It took a moment for the zanthyr’s comment to register, but then the boy frowned. He turned in a slow circle, unable to make sense of what he observed. The manor looked as if it was constantly and carefully tended. Everything shone with polish, from the marble floors to the gold handles on the ornate red furniture.

  He turned Phaedor a look over his shoulder. “What do you mean, my staff?”

  The zanthyr was peering out one of the mullioned glass doors positioned to either side of the bed. “Come, Tanis. I want to show you something.”

  Phaedor opened the doors and headed out onto a balcony. The wind was picking up, and it tossed Tanis’s ash-blonde hair into his eyes as he joined the zanthyr outside. The lad pushed a hand to hold back his hair and blinked at the view.

  For the first time, he was able to appreciate the immensity of the spectacular, razor-sharp peaks they’d traveled through, the tops of which were just then being bathed in the roseate sheen of sunset. However had they found their way among such a formidable congregation of mountains?

  He took a deep breath and tried to wrap his mind around the enormity of this moment, how meaningful it was to be there. This was the place he’d been birthed, and while his fifteenth name day had come and gone unremarked, forgotten amid the thrill of his recent adventures, finding home again was a greater gift than anything he might’ve asked for.