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

by Melissa McPhail

  “As if I could with your COMPULSION IN MY HEAD!”

  Abruptly Pelas became a streak of darkness that slammed into Darshan. He grabbed his brother as they both flew backwards into the tower wall. The stone exploded behind them, broken bits pelting down as they struggled, each encased in deyjiin, arms and legs scrabbling for leverage over the other.

  Pelas’s fist connected with Darshan’s nose, and blackness and blood darkened his vision. He fought back, feeling his knuckles slamming into the side of Pelas’s head. They spun, entangled, tumbling through puddles and across broken shards of stone that dented their flesh, until Darshan finally flipped Pelas off him with a forceful thrust.

  His brother went sprawling backwards into a merlon. His temple struck against the stone’s edge, and he pitched sideways to land in the crenel between. Darshan rolled to his feet and threw deyjiin at Pelas, but his brother dove to avoid the violet-silver streak, which exploded in a shattering of stone.

  Pelas launched at him again, and his head caught Darshan just below the ribcage, painfully forcing the breath from his lungs. They tumbled head over heels and stopped in a tangle of limbs.

  Faster to regain his bearings, Darshan again kicked his brother away. This time he simultaneously threw a stunning pattern, which caught Pelas at the hip while still in the air. He crashed down, skidded in a spray of water, and stopped just short of the stairway leading down into the tower.

  Darshan slowly got to his feet. His body thrummed with power, but rage still had him shaking. He walked to stand over his brother and watched him as he struggled to recover. Then, decided upon his course, he straddled Pelas’s body and clamped iron hands around his neck.

  Pelas’s eyes flew wide and he struggled, but his blows landed weakly, and with one leg useless and the other pinned beneath Darshan, he had no means of escape.

  Darshan watched dispassionately, his fingers a vise around Pelas’s throat, as his brother’s handsome face reddened and his eyes bulged, as veins stood out in his temples and his lips began paling.

  Their gazes locked; Pelas’s in merciless accusation, Darshan’s resolute.

  And then the unthinkable happened. Pelas twisted violently in his grasp—somehow, so unexpected—and Darshan felt fire sear across his chest. He fell sideways with disbelief. Looking down, he saw a long gash striping from shoulder to abdomen, the gouge deep enough to reveal his rib bones.

  Pelas rolled to his feet and climbed one-legged onto the nearest crenel. He turned to face Darshan, chest heaving. In his hand, he held a Merdanti dagger—a zanthyr’s blade, from the look of it.

  Pelas’s gaze burned into Darshan with remorseless condemnation. “Thank you, brother,” he murmured just as thunder shook the world again, its anger equally relentless, “it’s a relief to see my enemies more clearly.” He turned and dove off the tower.

  Darshan jumped up after him. His hands caught against the crenel in time to see Pelas somersaulting through a jagged black scar that sliced the air.

  Then the portal winked shut, and Darshan stood alone.

  Eight

  “A fools sees with his eyes, a wise man with his heart.”

  – Aristotle of Cyrene

  “Timeweaving,” said Tanis’s mother as the lad was breakfasting one sunny morning. She stood at the east-facing windows, a position she often occupied when instructing. “It’s possible you may have learned something of this skill during your travels, but I must assume that you haven’t.”

  “What’s timeweaving?” Tanis asked through a mouthful of biscuit crammed with salted pork—he had three left of the dozen that the cook, Madaé Giselle, had included among that morning’s fare.

  He knew his mother’s illusion couldn’t hear him, but he’d noticed that she often anticipated his next question so perfectly that it seemed she was reading his mind from the distant beyond; so he’d started asking the questions aloud, because doing so lent a sense of normalcy to a situation that was otherwise too entirely unnatural.

  “I’ve mentioned before the variant aspects of the strands.” His mother gazed out the window with her silver amulet caught between her fingers, its delicate chain but a faint sparkle around her neck. No matter her other accoutrements, this amulet she wore always, though sometimes Tanis caught merely a glimpse of the chain within the neckline of her gown. “All five strands have peculiarities associated with them. We call these peculiarities ‘variant traits.’ Healers, for instance, are sometimes born with the latent attribute of the Sight. Nodefinders may also walk the world of dreams. Many truthreaders are blessed with a talent for crafting broad illusions.”

  She turned to smile at him. Tanis thought even the sun stood diminished next to his mother’s radiance. “I should remind you, Tanis love, that the power of the fourth may be harnessed—harvested, if you will, the energy of thought skimmed like cream from the minds of men—in such a way as to impact the elements themselves. Many conceive such workings as being of the fifth, for the harvested power of the fourth can exert similar force over matter, energy and space, but the patterns used are not the same.”

  She turned from the window and strolled the boundaries of the room as she continued his lesson. “But I digress. In natives of the third strand—which strand many have aptly named the Wild magic—variant traits range broadly. Geishaiwyn, for instance, have a double gift. They can shift their features in small ways—nothing like the avieths, who change forms as completely as those creatures of the fifth strand. Geishaiwyn can also travel the leis. But the dual gift of shapeshifting and nodefinding limits them—for they cannot fully change themselves, and traveling the nodes and welds is quite beyond their ability.

  “In avieths we find yet another example of a variant aspect of the third strand. Alone of the third strand races, avieths can wholly shift forms. When avieths are in their human form, they are as human as any other Adept. While unusual, it is not unheard-of for avieths to cross-breed with Adepts of different strands.”

  His mother brushed a long lock of hair back off her shoulder and smiled.

  Tanis washed down the last vestiges of the crumbly biscuit with two large gulps of tea. “And timeweaving?”

  “Timeweaving,” she seemed to answer as she paused to examine a long wooden box upon one of the lacquered chests, laying her hand almost reverently upon its golden wood. Tanis had often seen her pause as she passed it. “Timeweaving is predominant among the Tyriolicci—a race better known as Whisper Lords—but only latent among the avieth clans. No other races are known to inherit timeweaving as a variant trait, though wielders in their graduate years may learn the patterns of its execution if they dare.”

  She’d reached the bed by then and leaned to straighten the covers, though the silk duvet remained rumpled as she moved on. “Not to digress too far,” she added, thoughtfully tapping a finger upon her lips, “but it is pertinent to note that many other variant aspects of the strands exist—too many to impart in this lesson. Likely you have heard of someone with the ability to unwork patterns. This is a particularly rare variant trait found only in adepts of the fifth strand; and Nodefinders exist—equally rare—who have been known to travel deftly across twisted nodes that none should be able to follow. Men who are born as Healers, and female truthreaders, are also bequeathed with their talent due to a variant trait. So there are talents even among the talented, obscure attributes inherited or graced.

  “While not one of these exactly,” she continued then, coming around at last toward where Tanis sat at the table, chin in hand, utterly entranced, “timeweaving is neither common nor easily mastered, even by those graced with the inherent understanding of its patterns. Perhaps this is well, for the manipulation of time itself is dangerous. While the Tyriolicci take but the slightest skips through time, were they to apply this talent on a larger scale, they might take themselves far into the future.”

  She slowly lowered herself into an armchair close to Tanis’s table and settled hands demurely in her lap.

  Tanis thought there
was something deeply magical about his mother—never mind that her entire lesson was an illusion so well-crafted that she seemed utterly corporeal. Even more than her skill with the fourth, his mother exuded a mystical aura that made Tanis think of her as nearly otherworldly.

  “Were they to embark upon such a tremendous journey into the future,” his mother went on, still talking about the Tyriolicci, “it would be for eternity.” The tiniest furrow between her brows emphasized the enormity of this truth. “This is something you must understand, Tanis my love. For Adepts anchored to the tapestry, the future has endless paths; the past has but one. The past cannot be unmade, nor reached again once the moment has departed. Perhaps the Maker willed it so, that consequences might have meaning.” She ended this sentence with a long, thoughtful look that didn’t quite meet his eyes—for of course she wasn’t actually there.

  Then she gave him a gentle smile, pressed fingers to her lips in a kiss, and faded.

  The lesson had ended, but Tanis understood that even this ending was an emphasis.

  That consequences might have meaning.

  He’d surely never thought of such concepts before, but now that he did think on them, the rationale appeared obvious. If the past could be blithely undone, even by a select few…if the world might be remade over and over again, what lessons might never be learned? Without consequence, how could anyone gauge the justice or injustice of an action? And in the long term, what would happen to the culture? For no actions would truly mean anything.

  Shoving his last biscuit into his mouth, the lad chewed thoughtfully and looked around for the next pattern. Then he paused in his chewing and looked again more closely. Finally he frowned. Nothing was glowing.

  Odd.

  Always before there’d been another pattern waiting for his attention, another lesson to be taught, at least until the sun cast short shadows on his balcony. But it seemed he was meant to ruminate—or at least to reflect—on his mother’s single lesson of the day.

  Pushing away his empty plate, Tanis reckoned he could reflect just as easily outside as in, and the day had dawned clear.

  The cook, Madaé Giselle, called the weather along the Caladrian Coast ‘fickle and tempestuous as a Hallovian tart,’ and Tanis knew she didn’t mean the kind of tart made with fruit. Since it could be sunny one hour and raining the next, Tanis dressed quickly and headed out.

  He gave cheerful hellos to his household staff—so strange to think of them as his, though the zanthyr had insisted that he must—and exchanged pleasantries with his seneschal, Madaé Lisbeth, an older woman who was diminutive and soft-spoken yet often eyed him in a way that made him slightly nervous. Actually, most of the staff made him a bit nervous, for they either looked at him with embarrassed awe, like the rosy-cheeked chambermaids, or with all-knowing gazes, like Madaé Lisbeth.

  His use of the Agasi tongue had become natural, and while he felt his vocabulary somewhat lacking for adjectives—or expletives, especially while sparring with the zanthyr—Tanis decided he was getting on all right. Much of his progress with the language was aided by the fact that his mother lectured in that same dialect, and what words she spoke Tanis couldn’t help but immediately recall then and thereafter.

  Before heading outside, Tanis looked for the zanthyr. When he didn’t find Phaedor in any of his usual places, the lad sought out the one person who would certainly know his whereabouts: the tall, wiry cook, Madaé Giselle.

  Neither tiff nor tryst went into the soup of everyday life at the Villa Serafina that Madaé Giselle didn’t inspect. Her fingers touched every conversational pie constructed or consumed within the villa grounds, and she swept up crumbs of gossip just by passing through a room.

  Besides which, his stomach was already growling again.

  He found the villa’s inimitable cook in the kitchen, furiously pounding chicken cutlets into pancake-like abominations on a long, marble-topped table. Suddenly unsure of his own position near the violence of her enthusiasm, the lad remained stationary until Madaé Giselle took a break to wipe her brow with her sleeve and saw him standing there.

  “Why Tanis, lordling, what are you doing a-standing and a-watching?” Madaé Giselle wore her long, ash-grey hair in a sort of turban formed of a great swath of blue cloth, which was dusted that morning by floured handprints. She set down her mallet and pushed an errant wisp of grey hair from her eyes. “Didn’t Birger a-bring your breakfast?”

  “He did, Madaé. I was looking for Phaedor, and—” The sudden growl in his stomach announced his alternative reason for venturing down to the kitchens.

  “My, you are a-growing yet,” Madaé Giselle noted with a crinkling of wizened eyes, “and the Lady of the Rivers knows I’ve been a-pounding chickens since dawn. Come then.” She waved him over. “We’ll see what Nathalia has in the warming oven, and you can keep me company while I take my pipe.”

  She called one of her assistants to resume the beating of the chicken flesh and the woman Nathalia to fetch Tanis a second breakfast, and they sat outside at a wrought-iron table near one of the wide brick ovens that the baker’s boys kept stoked all day.

  Between the heat coming off the open-mouthed oven and the hot pear and turkey pie that Nathalia brought Tanis, all balanced by the brisk chill of the sunny late-winter morning, the lad soon attained a perfect state of bliss.

  Madaé Giselle packed her long-stemmed briar pipe and fired it up, letting off a haze of smoke that smelled faintly of apple. “As to the Lord Phaedor, now my dearest,” she said then, “he was a-called away before dawn to see about another horse claimed by that drogue beast.” She shook her head and propped a scrawny ankle swathed in heavy woolen socks over the opposite knee. Tanis thought she must be at least sixty and twelve again, but she was a spry old woman for all of that, as knotted and strong as one of the Gandrel’s ancient white oaks.

  “I hope they catch the beast this time,” Giselle grumbled with teeth clenched around her pipe. “Dional’s been at naught but stalking of the thing since you and the Lord Phaedor were called that first day, and our ovens are a-feeling the Huntmaster’s absence.” She shook her head. “Naught but turkey and chicken is poor fare for the Lord Phaedor and our lady’s treasured son.”

  Tanis was much more concerned about his mother’s horses being killed than he was about what went into the pot for dinner. There was something inherently evil about destroying a Hallovian as that wolf had done. The image of Lilionath still sat with him, especially as he closed his eyes at night. “I don’t know why Phaedor doesn’t just help them find it,” Tanis muttered, more to himself than Madaé Giselle.

  “Well, it’s not his job,” Madaé Giselle commented, puffing twice on her pipe, “and the Lady of the Rivers knows he cannae be a-going round and righting all the wrongs in the world, now can he? What would become of the rest of us?”

  Tanis gave her a long look upon this comment, for his truthreader’s sense told him that she truly believed the zanthyr could make right everything that went on in the world.

  Faintly unsettled by the prospect, he asked, “How long have you known Phaedor, Madaé?”

  She eyed him askance. “Oh, as the years a-go, a long time, Tanis lordling. I’ve been a-cooking for the estate and your mother’s many guests who come and go for longer than I care to admit. The Lord Phaedor appears but like the great southern storms—once or twice in a decade’s time. Can’t say as I know him well,” and here she turned to look Tanis full in the eye, pulled her pipe from her teeth and gestured with it, “but I know well his reputation.”

  “But you knew my mother?”

  Madaé Giselle gave him a long, considering look, one eye spying him slightly narrower than the other. She shoved the pipe between her teeth again and took a long draw. “There’s things you haven’t asked him as yet, I take it.”

  Tanis popped the last of his tart into his mouth and mumbled, “Phaedor tells me only what he thinks I need to know, and that’s little enough.” He brushed the crumbs from his lips with his
fingers, sat back in his chair and crossed his arms before his chest, turning a look towards the apple orchard and the glimpse of blue sea beyond. “It’s no use asking, really. I know that he only withholds what he feels is important to my welfare, and foremost, he would never do anything that would bring me to harm, even if that means not telling me some important truth.”

  “My, yes.” Madaé Giselle’s brow creased compassionately. Then she flashed a smile, and Tanis saw the shadow of a much younger woman in her features. “But I never thought I’d see this day,” she said with a sigh, “the day you returned. What a joy this is to all of us—and what a handsome lordling you turned out to be! And so tall already, just like your father.”

  Tanis reddened under her admiring gaze. “Thank you, Madaé.”

  She gave him a tolerant nod.

  “Do you get many visitors here?” It seemed an odd sort of existence, appearing overnight to cook for perfect strangers.

  “Oh, your mother has many friends, but it’s a rare few as know the secret path through the formidable peaks of the Navárrel to find this valley. We’ve a-plenty to keep us busy at the main estate in any event.” She puffed a halo of apple-scented smoke around her head. “I vow it’s a nice change when we do get company at the Villa Serafina, for ‘tis only your mother’s friends as a-stay here,” and she added, winking, “and they’re an interesting bunch.”

  Tanis was sort of regarding her in awe when Madaé Giselle pushed out of her chair and stretched with hands supporting her lower back. She was very tall for a woman, taller even than Tanis—though he had to admit that a year ago he’d have been looking well up at her. The years didn’t seem to have diminished her spirit or her height. “Off with you now,” and she gave him a smile that made deep wrinkles around her eyes. “I’ve got work to do or there’ll not even be chicken for your dinner.”