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

by Melissa McPhail

  As Tanis was rising, Madaé Giselle tapped out the remains of her pipe over the oven grate. “His lordship mentioned you might want to work your forms in his absence.”

  “Of course he did,” Tanis muttered. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to another grueling day of swinging that Merdanti blade, although it was getting easier.

  When they’d been traveling the Navárrel together, Phaedor had woken him before sunrise every morning to spar with him. Among those icy reaches, the zanthyr had taught Tanis hand-to-hand combat, starting with maneuvers that Tanis would use in specific situations—someone attacking him, coming at him with a knife, grabbing him from behind. They’d practiced these maneuvers together until they became second nature to Tanis, and he’d grown adept at them.

  Gradually the zanthyr had broadened Tanis’s repertoire, adding new maneuvers and connecting each move with others so Tanis would eventually be able to think with all of them and adapt what he knew to varying situations. At the time, Tanis had found this training remarkably grueling—getting repeatedly flipped upside down and slammed onto your back by the zanthyr was not an experience he’d wish upon anyone.

  Yet in comparison to training swords with Phaedor, being shoved, spun, tumbled, flipped and otherwise tangled into painfully unmanageable positions was far preferable.

  Contemplating the day’s suddenly lackluster prospects, Tanis headed off, but just as he reached the kitchen gate, Madaé Giselle called after him from the door, “Oh, I nearly forgot, Tanis lordling. You’ve a guest came in late last eve. A friend of your mother’s, don’t you know,” and she chuckled at her own joke. “Don’t be squeamish if you see him about. He’s a wretched face but a kind soul.”

  A friend of my mother’s is here? Suddenly quite excited for the day again, the lad waved in acknowledgement and headed off.

  A friend of my mother’s!

  A part of him wanted to immediately rush to this man with ‘a wretched face but a kind soul’ and ask all of the questions that Phaedor had refused to answer. Yet this very potent desire put Tanis in a quandary. He’d just admitted that if the zanthyr hadn’t told him something, it was likely for his own good. What terrible consequence might claim him if he demanded answers of another…answers that Phaedor was determined not to give? Would Tanis be testing the Balance? Or was it only a natural course of events if someone else told him?

  How was he to gauge the right time to learn some vital secret?

  Walking beneath the high morning sun, feeling its heat upon his head even as a gust of wind chilled his face, Tanis exhaled a sigh. Even his own conscience stood defiantly against him.

  He’d just reached the centaurs’ courtyard where his sword awaited when a sudden echo of surging waves and a brisk wind off the beach brought the smell of salt and sea and an unexpected sense of calling; Tanis felt the ocean’s pull as clearly as if its waves shouted his name.

  He’d barely had any time to explore the shore—certainly not time enough to find that beach whose song of rushing pebbles he so dearly remembered. But he could practice just as easily by the sea as he could in the courtyard, couldn’t he? So he retrieved the bundle of weapons from the chest where Phaedor kept them and followed the ocean’s call.

  The apple orchard gave way to long scrub grass and twisted, knotty trees. With every step, the ocean’s roar grew apace with Tanis’s excitement, and soon he was fairly running.

  That moment when he cleared the trees was as exhilarating as his first gallop upon a worthy stallion. Tanis stood and basked in the view of rugged coastline and cliffs, his cheeks flushed from the chill morning air as much as from the brief exertion, and then he descended the path to the beach.

  A swath of sand spread between two jutting cliffs. Eddies in the dark water marked each end, rip currents vicious and cold, and between, the deep ocean pounded into froth against the shore. This was not a gentle beach—more akin to Dannym’s rough shores than the tourmaline waves that lapped languidly in the Bay of Jewels. Tanis found it exotic and thrilling.

  As he headed out across the sand, motion at the base of the far cliff caught his eye, and for the first time he noticed a man standing there. The stranger turned his head to look at Tanis, and then—in what seemed the very next instant!—he was standing just five paces in front of the lad.

  Tanis might’ve made more than a half-uttered gasp had his attention not been claimed in the same moment by the flash of a pattern imprinting itself upon his consciousness like the painful after-image of the sun.

  The man’s skin shone as black as pitch, while his long nose hooked over a mouth that seemed frozen in a perpetual scowl. Dressed all in black, his boots and britches were bound at ankle, knee and thigh, while his belted jacket belled loose through the sleeves. Tanis appreciated Madaé Giselle’s warning, for who else could this be but his mother’s wretched-faced friend?

  The stranger offered unexpectedly in the Common Tongue, “Storm-surge.” He flicked one leathery hand toward the waves. “Swell came in this morning.” His face seemed frozen in a fierce scowl, but he’d the soft-spoken voice of a poet. “Any time one of the volcanoes on the island of Palma Lai erupts, there’s stormy seas on the Caladrian Coast.”

  Tanis asked by way of nervous greeting. “So it’s not always this raging?”

  The man grinned, shrugged. “Well…Palma Lai erupts a lot.”

  Tanis noted that the grin did little to lessen the ill-aspect of the man’s features, but his gold-flecked eyes were wonderfully warm.

  Still feeling a little rattled by the man’s sudden appearance so close to him, Tanis shifted his bundle of weapons to his other arm and extended his hand. “I’m Tanis.” He willed himself to relax in the company of the Wildling, whom he’d immediately and correctly recognized as a Whisper Lord.

  “Loghain,” replied the Tyriolicci. He clasped wrists with Tanis in the western fashion. “But of course you could only be ‘the babe Tanis,’” Loghain noted as he held Tanis’s wrist in a firm grip, winking at the moniker, “though clearly a babe no more. To hear Madaé Lisbeth speak of you all these years, you’d think she expected you to be in swaddling still.”

  Tanis gazed at him in surprise. “Madaé Lisbeth spoke of me?”

  Loghain gave him an amused look—or at least his eyes appeared so. “Ah, but you’re legend, lad. Since the zanthyr left with you, the story of ‘the babe Tanis’ has gained near religious status to these folk, and you their long-awaited messiah.”

  Tanis barely heard the end of this, for his ears had hung like a fish on the line from the very start. “Since Phaedor left with me?”

  Loghain gave him an odd look. “Well, yes, lad. On your mother’s instruction, t’was the zanthyr took you across the sea.” Missing Tanis’s astonished expression, the Whisper Lord continued quietly, his voice floating upon the breeze just loud enough to be heard above the crashing waves, “I suppose Madaé Lisbeth has her right, if anyone does. T’was her cared for you in your cradle.”

  Tanis had never even thought to wonder if any of ‘his staff’ had known him as a baby. Now, not only did he find out that they had, but also he knew how he’d come to live with Melisande d’Giverny. This was more information than he might’ve gotten from the zanthyr in all of a week with Fortune on his side!

  Fair beaming at the Whisper Lord, Tanis asked, “How did you do that just now? Cross the distance so fast?”

  “I but walked, lad.”

  While Tanis could hear the amusement in Loghain’s tone, he also knew that the man spoke the truth. That’s when he understood.

  Convenient that his mother had just been teaching him of timeweaving, how it was a talent of Whisper Lords, and now here he stood meeting one. Entirely too convenient. But what else could it be but coincidence?

  Tanis realized he’d sort of been staring at Loghain while these thoughts found their place in his understanding, and he dropped his eyes again with a smile. “Sorry, sir. I…it’s—I was just learning about timeweaving this morning.” He looked back
to the man. “That is what you did, isn’t it?”

  “Just so, lad. We call it foléim beag, the little skip.”

  Tanis hitched up the weapons under his arm—they were really growing heavy. “I saw a pattern a moment ago. I mean, not actually,” he corrected, trying to understand the experience himself. “It was more like the afterimage of a pattern…a reflection, maybe?”

  Loghain arched the ridges that passed for eyebrows on his leathery face. “Did you now?”

  Tanis frowned. “I don’t normally see patterns—not like Prince Ean does. Not like the zanthyr. I only see the ones on my walls when they glow.”

  Loghain gave Tanis a curious look and then glanced over toward the cliff he’d just left. “Have you ever seen a fire-starfish, Tanis?”

  The lad shook his head.

  “Well, you should, and you have some spectacular ones along this beach. Come, I’ll show you.”

  Tanis hiked up the bundle beneath his arm and followed the Whisper Lord. “My mother told me most people who can timeweave just take little skips through time, like you did, but she also said it’s possible to move further forward through time, though only forward, not backwards.”

  Loghain gave him a curious look. “When did she tell you this?”

  “This morning.” But at Loghain’s astonished stare, Tanis hastened to add, “It was her, but it wasn’t. It’s…complicated.”

  “Apparently.” The Wildling’s golden eyes glittered as they gazed upon him, reminding Tanis for some reason of the zanthyr. “Well,” Loghain turned forward again, “it is possible to move ahead in time, but it’s perilous. There’s no certainty of the span one skips when moving through wide swaths of time; gauging the moments rests solely upon the wielder’s skill. For most who attempt it, there’s no going backwards again to find the years that were lost. A grave undertaking.”

  Tanis looked to him, for he spoke with feeling. “You said for most who attempt it. Are there people who can travel back in time?”

  Loghain studied him for a long while, his eyes now frowning in union with his other features. Then he looked away and said in a low voice, “Theoretically, under certain extremely rare conditions, such might be accomplished, but I know of no Adept who’s ever succeeded.” Looking slightly uncomfortable with the topic, the Whisper Lord motioned to the bundle Tanis kept switching from arm to arm as they walked—a long way through the sand, which Loghain had crossed the first time faster than a breath of wind. “But what have you there?”

  “Oh, this.” Tanis’s face fell as he turned his attention to the swords and his purpose for carrying them. “Phaedor’s gone with Huntmaster Dional, so I thought I’d come here to work my forms.”

  Loghain brightened upon these words—if such could be said of the way his brows seemed to lift and soften slightly. Tanis realized the man’s ill-disposed features were quite expressive if one knew how to read them. “I’ll be your sparring partner, lad,” the Whisper Lord offered. “That is, if you’ll have me.”

  Tanis gave him a grateful look yet tinged with uncertainty. He recalled too well what had happened to Prince Ean and Lord Fynnlar when they met a Whisper Lord on the streets of Chalons-en-Les Trois.

  “That would be…um, great.”

  Loghain chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “I vow I’ll be a kinder pairing for you than the First Lord’s zanthyr.” He laughed again at this near absurdity and then spared a look around. “This seems as good a spot as any, wouldn’t you say?”

  Tanis set down the bundled weapons in the sand and asked as he unwrapped them, “Who is the First Lord, sir?”

  “The man Phaedor serves, lad.” Tanis heard more in Loghain’s words than the Wildling had likely intended, but Loghain’s thoughts were strong and full of reverence and obligation both. The Wildling added as Tanis was watching him, “The man I’m sworn to as well.”

  Tanis held the Whisper Lord’s gaze, feeling suddenly apprehensive. “Raine D’Lacourte believed that Phaedor served the Fifth Vestal.”

  Loghain cracked the knuckles on both hands and then shook out his arms in preparation for their sparring. “And what did the zanthyr say to that?”

  Tanis grunted. “He says his motives are his own.”

  Loghain seemed to suppress a smile. Then his gaze softened, perhaps in understanding of Tanis’s apparent dilemma. “And which do you think is true, lad?”

  Tanis sighed. “Both.” He threw off the last of the canvas and revealed the blades within.

  Loghain barked a laugh. “Merdanti!” He shoved hands onto hips and grinned broadly, his leathery black face looking ever the mummer’s mask. “He teaches you swordplay with Merdanti blades. By Cephrael’s Great Book, the creature has balls bigger than Belloth!”

  “The blades are dormant,” Tanis offered, albeit a mite resentfully. He held one to Loghain.

  The Whisper Lord pushed both hands before him in amiable rejection. “Oh, I’d rather not put my skill to such a test as that would prove, young Tanis, dormant blade or no.” He patted the chest of his jacket. “If you will permit me instead…”

  Tanis nodded while his apprehension waxed and his courage frustratingly waned.

  From inside his jacket, the Whisper Lord pulled two rolled leather bundles and carefully unfolded his daggered gloves. The razor-edged blades were nearly as long as Tanis’s forearm, and they were frightful to look upon as they extended out of the glove’s fingers like a dragon’s claws. The lad couldn’t help but think of Lord Fynnlar’s wounds, the scars of which he’d been all too eager to share with Tanis, along with a morbidly detailed and dramatic retelling that necessarily emphasized his bravery.

  Loghain smiled at Tanis’s faintly horrified expression. “Would you like a closer look, lad?”

  Somewhat in awe, Tanis accepted the proffered glove. At a look of prodding from Loghain, he slipped his right hand inside. Soft fleece lined the thick leather, while each finger fit inside a metal sheath—a fitted tube, even—that formed the hilt of its accompanying dagger. Tanis couldn’t bend his fingers once inside the metal casing. The daggers were scary even wearing them on his own fingers. Tanis took care to point them away from his face.

  He slipped off the glove and returned it cautiously to its owner. “A friend of mine was nearly killed by such as this.”

  “Oh, indeed, they’re deadly things.” Loghain pushed his hands into his gloves. Then he clicked his daggers together and added with a wink, “Though no more so than a Merdanti blade.” He motioned Tanis up and into position.

  Calling his courage sharply to heel, the lad took up his blade and faced off against the Whisper Lord.

  With grave solemnity, Loghain pressed palms together before his chest, bowed slightly, and then let his blades slide off each other with a deadly scraping hiss as his arms flew wide.

  Tanis took a reflexive step backwards.

  “Intimidation is half the battle, lad.” Loghain watched him in a quietly intense way. He drew one arm back at the shoulder, lethal daggers fanned forward, and held his other hand low and partly hooked, ready to eviscerate.

  Tanis eyed him uncertainly.

  “Come now.” Loghain encouraged with gentle guidance. “Let’s see what the zanthyr has taught you. We’ll take the forms at half-speed.” His golden eyes met Tanis’s and held them firmly. “Begin.”

  Tanis’s throat felt suddenly dry and his heart started pounding even before he took that first step forward, but to his great relief, he actually did take that step.

  The first form was a simple combination, Cardinal Skims the Water, which involved cutting down right, crouching and then sweeping from low to high. Cardinal Skims the Water naturally flowed through Searching the Sea and Crouching Leopard into Holding the Moon.

  Loghain didn’t press him into Black Dragon Whips His Tail or Green Dragon Emerging From the Water, yet Tanis came easily to understand why Lord Fynnlar had nearly been killed by the Wildling in Chalons-en-Les Trois: no matter the form Tanis used, a single sword was just i
neffectual against the Whisper Lord’s daggered gloves! Every time Tanis thought he’d blocked an attack, Loghain would pause their practice to point out his other hand—the one Tanis didn’t have blocked with his sword—which was invariably aimed at some part of his body that he very much wanted to keep.

  Thus did their practice continue, with Loghain working him carefully through the first nine forms while also pointing out what not to do if Tanis was ever unfortunate enough to actually battle one of Loghain’s Tyriolicci brethren.

  Sparring with the Wilding was a vastly different experience from sword practice with the zanthyr. For one, the Whisper Lord took great care not to harm Tanis, and he would frequently stop their interplay to discuss a maneuver or to show Tanis how he was putting himself in danger. Once Loghain had assured himself that Tanis knew how to use his blade, he pushed the lad faster, with Tanis working hard to fend off quickly thrusting attacks.

  Yet even this felt like practice; it had none of the vital desperation present in the zanthyr’s teaching, for even in instruction, Phaedor fought with such fury and carefully measured force that Tanis’s every decision truly felt critical to his continued survival.

  The sun was climbing toward midday and Tanis had worked up a healthy sweat when Loghain gave them a moment to rest. Their respite was necessarily short-lived, for the brisk wind whipped the ever-present crashing sea into spray, and Tanis quickly grew chilled when standing still.

  As they faced off again in their circle of trampled sand, Loghain pressed gloved hands together, bowed, and sliced his blades apart, assuming his position once more.

  “You’re far more advanced in your training than I imagined,” he complimented with arms held ready, spiny blades aimed at Tanis’s head and gut. “Let’s move then to more difficult terrain. No doubt he’s been instructing you in the ta’fieri.”

  Tanis grimaced. “Yes, sir.”

  Loghain smiled at his reluctance. “Come then. The ta’fieri is the only form effective against Tyriolicci blades.”

  If only not to appear ungrateful for Loghain’s instruction, Tanis reluctantly reawakened muscles already taxed and began sweeping his sword back and forth in the zanthyr’s torturous figure-eight style.