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

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Paths of Alir (A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book 3) Page 17

by Melissa McPhail


  “But I would believe it.” Her eyes searched his. “Truth may be a stinging balm, but it’s the only one that heals in the end.”

  He took her hand and kissed her palm. “I’m grateful for your wisdom.”

  Then he grabbed his coat and departed. She didn’t ask him if he would return. In all their years together, she never had.

  Night had fallen by the time Pelas emerged from Socotra’s apartments. He paused at the top of the steps leading down from her building and surveyed the campus. In daylight’s stead, the lamps lining the manicured paths had come to illuminated life; miniature suns, captured stars, they formed an earthbound constellation across the wide expanse of lawn. Dark forms passed here and there along the shadowed channels between—Adepts and faculty heading to and from their evening classes.

  But Pelas observed the night in search of his brothers’ spies.

  Some he knew by sight, most by the feel of their minds, which ever remained darkened after a brush with Darshan or Shail’s. He might’ve called a portal while still inside Socotra’s chambers and avoided any confrontation, but he’d lingered for two reasons: first, he wanted the men who trailed him to know he’d left Socotra’s home, that they might find no reason to molest her. Second…he had a message for them to pass along to his brother.

  He thought he felt their watchful presence as he descended the steps. They wouldn’t attack him openly, not in that venue thick with wielders and raedans, not where the world could so easily learn of their activities. But he wanted to hasten their approach, so he headed across the lawn and into the woods, back towards the Morning Garden where he’d met Socotra and where groves of towering elms would hide their interaction.

  Reaching an open grove he found satisfactory, he removed jacket and shirt and draped both neatly across a sapling. Then he turned a circle, gaze uplifted, searching for the right vantage. He found it in an arching limb thirty feet above. Thick as four men, the limb spanned the range of the clearing to mingle its branches with those of the facing giant.

  One leap and his hands found purchase around the broad limb. The jaguar might not be as imposingly framed as the tiger, but it often showed itself faster and lither; it made up in speed and ingenuity what it lacked in strength.

  One day his brothers would realize this about him.

  In moments, Pelas crouched on the tree and cloaked himself in night. He marveled that neither of his brothers had yet learned the trick—a simple working of deyjiin—but it had helped him listen in on numerous of their conversations unnoticed.

  He felt the spies before they reached him, for they pushed the currents in front of them in a steady, warbling wave, a reaction he hadn’t observed in the currents before. Presently the spies appeared out of the gloom, and Pelas understood why they made such an unusual impression on elae’s tides: they wore only their skin—night-black skin with even blacker eyes—and they reeked of deyjiin, heavy as a drunkard’s stench. These then must be two of the eidola his brothers had been talking about.

  Pelas remained quiet on his high branch, listening, frowning at the wood-slat clatter that passed for language between the two of them. He knew many languages of this realm and should’ve known the one they spoke…

  Then he had it. These eidola had once been Fhorgs—that told him immediately which brother had created them—but their stilted vocal chords made the language of Myacene—already guttural and chopped—into a clattering farce.

  He watched them pick up his jacket, sniff it and look around. Then he scowled as they dropped it onto the grass. Apparently being bound to his brother didn’t make them any more intelligent.

  Or perhaps these two weren’t bound at all. Shail and Darshan had intimated using different methods to make their eidola. Tainted by Dore Madden’s influence and already too fond of compulsion, Darshan would’ve used the darkest patterns to sculpt his creatures, but Shail would’ve chosen only the most effective. Pelas couldn’t be sure how these eidola had been crafted without inspecting them closer.

  How simple to make the ground as mud beneath their feet. They sank like stones—he had to harden it quickly lest it swallow too much of them. The two creatures hissed and spat and pulled impotently at their thighs, but unless they could work the fifth—which he severely doubted—they’d remain there at his pleasure.

  Pelas released his nightcloak and jumped down from the limb. The ground leapt to meet him in a sweep of wind. He landed in a crouch near the two eidola, who snarled what had to be curses; he thought he recognized a few words out of the flotsam their voices made of their native tongue.

  Baring black bone for teeth, one pulled its blade—Merdanti, of course—and swung it at him, which Pelas easily avoided. The other’s blade had been caught in the earth along with its legs. It growled a black-gummed snarl instead.

  Just to appease his curiosity, Pelas tried a number of ways to harm them, but the fifth-strand slid off their skin like water over tarred wood.

  Interesting.

  First taking a moment to refold his jacket, he moved to the eidola closest to him, the one still swinging its blade, and thought: free.

  The earth practically spit the creature out.

  It streaked towards him—a flash of dark lightning, faster than Pelas had expected, which impressed him. Fast, but not faster than him. He slipped into its guard, grabbed its arm and spun it over his back. It slammed into the earth with a thud, and its blade went whipping end over end into the grass.

  It was stronger than he’d expected, though, for it yanked free of his hold and rolled-jumped-flipped towards him. It caught itself on one arm and slammed its feet into Pelas’s chest. He flew backwards, somersaulted, and came up in a crouch just as the eidola sprang for him again. Pelas launched up underneath it and caught his arms around its waist. They hit the earth in an explosion of grass and dirt and tumbled again.

  Pelas came up on top. He straddled the creature quickly, grabbed its head and twisted with a grunt of effort to the reward of a resounding crack. The creature jerked and then stilled beneath him. Just to be certain it was dead, Pelas put a hand on its stony chest and ripped deyjiin out of it. The body crystallized and then crumbled into black ash between his legs.

  He looked to the other eidola.

  It had gone quiet and was watching him with those dark eyes, perhaps contemplating its own hitherto unanticipated mortality. Pinning it with his gaze, Pelas stood and approached.

  Bury, he thought, and the earth complied. He hardened the earth again just beneath the eidola’s chin. It spat a clattering curse at him.

  Pelas crouched in front of its head. “Would you prefer I bury you up to your nose?”

  In reply, the creature glared malevolently.

  Pelas held its obsidian gaze. He noticed the hint of deyjiin’s violet-silver gleam in the depths of its eyes. “If you would live, tell my brother this: if he wants me to stay out of his business, he’d best stay out of mine.”

  He walked to retrieve his clothes.

  “You’re just going to leave me here?” The creature’s crackling voice sounded like a spray of falling pebbles. So it could speak something other than wood-slat. “Like this?”

  Pelas pushed his arms into his sleeves. “You object to being left alive?”

  The creature glared sullenly.

  “No doubt my brother will send someone along after a while. I suppose you’ve some way of calling him.”

  “He’ll gut you for this.”

  “All families have their disagreements.” Pelas slipped his arms into his jacket, gave the glaring eidola a cool smile of farewell, and called a portal for home.

  Eleven

  “He complains wrongfully at the sea who suffers shipwreck twice.”

  – a Caladrian proverb

  Two raps came upon the heavy doors of the High Lord Marius di L'Arlesé’s office. He looked up from his desk as a pair of Praetorians opened the doors and clapped vambraces against their etched silver breastplates in a military salute. Through the
parting breezed Giancarlo.

  “High Lord,” he said as he swept inside, “Vincenzé comes from the Sormitáge with the Imperial Historian in tow. You’ll want to hear what the maestro has to say.”

  “Monseraut Greaves? Regarding?”

  “T’were better the man confess to you directly, High Lord.”

  Marius considered Giancarlo curiously. “Very well. Have Vincenzé bring him to my salon.”

  Giancarlo nodded and withdrew, and the Praetorians closed the doors behind him.

  The High Lord slowly closed the cover on the book he’d been reading. He’d hoped that reviewing accounts from the Adept Wars would shed some light on the strangeness he kept seeing on the currents—which ranged at times from a single thread of inky darkness to an entire tide of it—but he’d spent hours reviewing descriptions of deyjiin’s effects, and none of those sightings matched his own present observations. He could do no less than count them as hours wasted.

  Instinct told him this taint was manmade, but the Empress’s repeated bleak conjecturing about the end of days had him mired in doubt. For all he argued against her on the matter, Marius couldn’t entirely discount the possibility. What if the taint was a precursor to something far more dire? Was elae itself failing?

  Marius leaned back in his chair and exhaled a heavy sigh. To think he’d lived to see such times. He resented how often he felt the temptation to take the palace’s weld elsewhere—anywhere, just to some realm where elae didn’t reek of death.

  The High Lord thrummed his fingers on the worn leather cover and then he pushed out of his chair. He would hear what Monseraut Greaves had to say.

  He entered his salon to find Giancarlo and Vincenzé standing to either side of the portly historian, who was wringing his hands anxiously. Marius frowned. “Monseraut, welcome. May I offer you a glass of wine?”

  The historian looked up with immense gratitude. “Wine would be most appreciated, Your Grace.”

  Giancarlo went and poured the man a goblet while Marius took a seat.

  “Well then,” said the High Lord as he settled in an armchair. He considered each of the men in turn. “What have we?”

  “Monseraut Greaves has been withholding information concerning the disappearance of Malin van Drexel.” Vincenzé gave the historian a piercing look of censure.

  Likewise offering a disapproving stare, Giancarlo begrudgingly handed Monseraut his wine. The historian drank half of it in one gulp and then lifted his baggy eyes to the High Lord.

  Marius arched a brow. “Well? What say you to this accusation, Monseraut?”

  “I know nothing of Malin’s disappearance, Your Grace, would that I did!” He cast a despairing look of entreaty at the two Caladrians. “I—I had intended to find and confront Malin on the very evening he disappeared.”

  Marius folded hands in his lap. “And?”

  The historian wetted his lips. “I went to the Archives the night Malin disappeared. I didn’t find the lad, but I did see evidence that he’d been eating at his desk not long before I arrived.”

  “This is all documented, Monseraut.”

  Vincenzé flicked the man’s arm with the back of his hand. “Dare not waste the High Lord’s time, Maestro.”

  First shooting a fearful glance towards each of the looming Caladrians, the historian pulled a kerchief from inside his vest and wiped his brow. “Malin was working on his Devoveré thesis under my tutelage, Your Grace,” he said then. “He’d been researching variant traits and their influence in history—it’s quite an interesting topic, actually, it—”

  “My patience wanes, Monseraut.” Marius pinned the historian with a penetrating gaze. “Speak quickly and forthrightly.”

  Vincenzé seized his arm. “Tell the High Lord why you were looking for Malin.”

  The historian looked around at the host of inhospitable gazes leveled upon him and paled measurably. “I fear Malin has taken an…important work from the Archives.”

  “Taken.” The High Lord drew back in his seat. His voice deepened with his alarm. “Which important work?”

  The historian turned even sicklier in hue. “The first volume of the Qhorith’quitara.”

  Vincenzé released the man’s arm with a shove of contempt.

  Marius stared at Monseraut. He feared his ears had tricked him, for surely the man had not just said what he thought he’d heard. “Are you telling me that Malin van Drexel vanished with one of the apocryphal books of the Sobra I’ternin—in his possession?”

  Monseraut whimpered, “The Lady preserve me, it were not so! I don’t see how it’s possible. No, not possible. Not possible!” He squeezed the goblet in his hands and kept muttering fervent denials.

  Marius looked to Vincenzé. “Get the Order onto this.” He fastened an incendiary gaze back on the historian as Vincenzé speeded off. “Who have you told, Monseraut?”

  “No one, Your Grace!” The goblet in the historian’s hand trembled. “I dared not.” He patted his brow with his kerchief again and said by way of seeking the High Lord’s mercy, “It was a—a copy only. The originals are held in the Empress’s vault, as you well know.”

  Marius cast him a critical eye. “Even a copy of one of the books of The Qhorith’quitara is still a book of power.”

  Monseraut swallowed and dropped his gaze. “Yes, Your Grace. Quite so.”

  Marius rubbed his jaw and considered the ill news. The apocryphal volumes known collectively as the Qhorith’quitara comprised writings and patterns from the Sobra I’ternin which were deemed too dangerous for broad study—even among a public of highly vetted and trusted scholars. In some cases, the patterns were considered so treacherous that any propagated knowledge of them had been deemed potentially hazardous to the realm. The works were also known to contain legends of near-mythical creatures—powerfully dark beings—whose names and abilities were better kept secret.

  The High Lord cast Monseraut a fierce stare. “How by the Lady did Malin van Drexel get his hands on any volume of the Qhorith’quitara?”

  Monseraut wiped his brow again. “Malin was assisting me in the archival chambers, and…I let him read a page out of the first volume.” The confession came out as a squeak. “Under my supervision, of course! The passage applied to his research. We—we’ve let older students view isolated passages as they applied to their studies, Your Grace. There is precedent for it. My grave mistake came when I handed the book to Malin to replace upon its shelf, trusting too deeply and foolishly of his character.” He gave the High Lord a look of heartfelt contrition. “I should have known the book would speak to him.”

  “Speak to him?” Marius shifted in his chair. “What do you mean?”

  The folds of Monseraut’s flabby face contorted with equal parts chagrin and shame. “As you noted, High Lord, even a copy of the work remains a book of power. I’ve handled the volumes enough to have become inured to their magnetic lure. I’d forgotten how intrinsically the patterns within them call to an Adept—it’s almost as if the books exert some inherent compulsion that requires a man to read them, the deadly oleander calling the unwary to partake of its nectar.”

  Marius thrummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “What information does the volume contain?”

  Monseraut pulled at the collar of his robes to get at his neck with the handkerchief. “The history and nature of the angiel and the ancient races, a treatise on existential equalization—”

  “By this you refer to Balance,” the High Lord muttered.

  “Yes, Your Grace. It covers some of the more esoteric concepts regarding the qualities and interrelationships of the strands…” He cast a vague look from his empty goblet toward the distant decanter of wine. “Other things…”

  “I would like a complete listing of the subject matter covered.”

  “Yes, Your Grace. But if I may…”

  The High Lord gave him a mildly irritated look but nodded for him continue.

  Monseraut wrung the goblet between his hands. “I mean only to
bring to your attention that the volume doesn’t appear to have left the Archives, though…well, we cannot find it. As Your Grace may recall, all of the restricted level materials are branded with a trace pattern. They cannot be physically removed from the Archives without setting off a series of alarms, including fourth-strand containment fields that activate around the entire building.”

  “Yet you cannot find the book using its trace pattern.”

  The historian shook his head.

  “Vanished,” Giancarlo observed, “just like the boy.”

  Marius found the news increasingly disquieting. He cast a troubled look at Giancarlo. He trusted the truthreader to tell him if the historian spoke an untruth, yet the entire affair remained so bewildering that it seemed some lie must yet be hidden within the chain of inquiry, befuddling and obscuring all that followed. “When did you notice the book missing, Monseraut?”

  “The day before poor Malin vanished, Your Grace.”

  Marius exhaled forcefully. “Did you not think the boy’s disappearance might be due to his having the book? That the investigating captain and especially the Order might need this information?”

  Monseraut’s shoulders slumped. “Your Grace…it’s the Qhorith’quitara—free of the vault, free for the taking.” His eyes searched the High Lord’s gaze imploringly. “To those who know its name…would they not go to any lengths to claim such a work? There are Arcane Scholars who would kill to possess any verified copy of its volumes. Even among the Order, can all be trusted?”

  “Someone may have claimed it already, Monseraut,” the High Lord groused, but he conceded the historian’s point.

  Marius’s gaze narrowed as he thought through the matter. “I must know everything about Malin van Drexel: his work with you, Monseraut; his thesis, his friends and acquaintances—everything. You will include what steps have been taken to recover the book thus far.” He looked to Giancarlo then. “Tell Vincenzé I want a web of patterns crisscrossing the Sormitáge campus. If the book stirs even a breath of air outside the Archives, I would have alarms sounding across the Imperial city, so even I may know of its appearance.”

 

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