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

by Melissa McPhail

  Tanis’s senses screamed and his heart leaped into double-time as he watched the massive creature gliding from darkness into the light—head, shoulders and haunches emerged from the wall of night as if birthed by it.

  Drogue wolf, his mental voice whimpered.

  Twice the size of a normal wolf, this beast was born of impossibly high mountains and voracious winters—a thinking beast of cunning and intelligence.

  And this one was clearly deranged.

  Even had the wolf not held its head slightly tilted and sideways, Tanis would’ve known its illness from its thoughts, for they rolled upon a tide of madness. Tanis felt them, sensed them, even as he might know a man’s thoughts—for all thoughts had force, whether they belonged to man or beast.

  In one torrential rush, Tanis knew the virulent illness that drove the wolf to mania, as well as the crazed and vicious impulses that held the creature in thrall. He knew also that what remained of the wolf’s true self desired only to leave this place—this forest that accosted his ears with its maddening hum—but he couldn’t…couldn’t…

  The fever that ravaged the wolf was not unlike the terrible storm of Bethamin’s Fire which had so destroyed the mind of the boy Piper.

  The beast slung its snout to and fro while the muscles of its haunches twitched erratically. As it entered the edge of Tanis’s firelight, the wolf bared its teeth, and a guttering snarl rumbled in its throat. The sound raised the hairs on the lad’s arms and sent a shudder down his spine.

  The wolf stopped ten paces away and faced Tanis. It seemed to see the boy for the first time, and when it did…

  With a sinking feeling, Tanis felt the beast’s thoughts focus…focus through the delirium—

  Focus on him.

  The wolf growled. Then it leapt.

  Tanis dove.

  It happened so fast. A desperate urgency gripped the lad and—

  The world shifted.

  The wolf…slowed.

  Tanis could think of no other explanation for what his eyes perceived. The animal appeared to hang in midair while Tanis slammed into the earth. He stared up at the hulking beast above, its razor teeth bared. But Tanis’s motion and the motion of the wolf were no longer congruous—the two of them no longer traveled on the same thread of time.

  Tanis pushed shakily to his feet and noticed that the motion felt heavy and his limbs sluggish, like swimming through the mudslide that had dumped him into this mess.

  Still in the grip of that first instant of desperation, Tanis thought of what harm the wolf had caused, of what it would surely do to him if he allowed it, and the instinct to kill rather than be killed grew strong. He pushed his sluggish limbs until he stood beneath the wolf. Then he drove his knife towards the beast’s throat.

  It was all happening in an instant, yet Tanis knew each moment within that instant as intimately as if every ticking second existed for an eternity. The lad watched as his own blade inched closer to the wolf’s throat, and then—

  A shadowed…something.

  A bracing impact knocked Tanis sideways and stole his breath even as it broke the infinity into even smaller infinities—a second of time shattering into a thousand moments more—stretching this single instant beyond comprehension.

  The lad felt himself flying…falling, and he twisted to see Phaedor’s dark form glide between himself and the wolf, the zanthyr’s cloak floating in suspension upon the waves of endless time.

  And the world started again.

  Tanis hit the ground with jarring force. His breath completely left his lungs, and stars blanketed his vision. Tasting blood as he lay gasping for air, he watched the zanthyr catch the wolf’s muzzle with both hands, swing the great beast around, and slam it to the ground pinned beneath him.

  The creature exploded in fury. Dirt and leaves peppered the trees behind its powerful legs as clawed feet scrabbled for purchase. It growled a horrid, guttering snarl that raised the hairs on the back of Tanis’s neck. But Phaedor was of the fifth; he sat as a vice above the wolf, still as stone, utterly immovable.

  Frightened and shocked, Tanis pushed up and hugged his knees. He stared numbly at the zanthyr, drinking the air in little gasps. He realized that whatever he’d just done—however he’d done it—what the zanthyr had done to join him in that moment was exponentially more impossible.

  As the lad watched, the wolf’s struggling ebbed, and the beast finally calmed. Straddling the creature, Phaedor murmured something in a language that seemed to Tanis to be as ancient as the realm itself.

  The wolf whined pitifully.

  This plaintive whimper tore at Tanis, and he experienced a powerful pang of sympathy. He wondered why the zanthyr delayed putting the beast out of its misery and felt frustrated by Phaedor’s uncharacteristic lack of compassion, until...

  Understanding dawned with a new shock spawned of sudden guilt.

  Phaedor wasn’t planning to kill the wolf. He was healing it.

  This moment of realization flowed into a lengthy and motionless silence, and Tanis—both altogether unnerved and powerfully moved—found himself perpetually checking to be certain that time yet flowed in its natural course.

  The lad shakily reclaimed his feet. He took small comfort in brushing the dirt and leaves from his clothes and watching the pieces fall normally to the forest floor. An owl’s hoot encouraged him, as did the sudden staccato of rising rainfall hitting the forest firs.

  Finally, the wolf gave a different sort of throaty whimper, but this time its tone seemed submissive…even perhaps tinged with contrition.

  Phaedor released the beast and spun off it in one swift and graceful turn, and Tanis watched nervously as the animal sprang to its feet. The beast shook out its ruff and then the rest of its body, peppering the nearby trees with bits of mud.

  Tanis stifled a latent shudder. He stood close enough to smell the beast’s feral musk, but the wolf’s thoughts were no longer loud enough for the boy to hear or sense, and its yellow eyes appeared altogether lucid as they locked upon the zanthyr’s.

  Phaedor nodded once.

  The wolf snarled. Then it spun and bounded off, vanishing like a ghost into the curtain of night.

  Tanis let out a shuddering exhale.

  And the events of the night collapsed upon him. He pitched to his knees beside the fire, willing away threatening tears. No small part of the clenching feeling in his chest was the certainty that he would’ve killed the wolf while Phaedor had delivered its salvation. “What…what in Tiern’aval just happened?”

  After a moment, Phaedor came and crouched down beside the lad. “Exactly what do you think happened, Tanis?”

  He pushed palms to his eyes. “Don’t torment me with questions now, my lord—please, I beg you!”

  The zanthyr drew in his breath sharply. “It’s not my intention to torment you, Tanis. Your perception and mine may not be the same.”

  Tanis hadn’t thought of that. He dropped his hands and managed an uncomfortable swallow. His chest and throat were horribly tight. “I think…that time…shifted.”

  “And I would agree.” Phaedor regarded the boy with an unwavering gaze. “Yet ‘tis truer to say you shifted time.”

  “Yes…” Tanis abruptly leaned to brace elbows on knees and rest his forehead in his hands, feeling sick, “that’s what I thought you were going to say.”

  It was one thing to dream of having special abilities—Tanis and his friend Tad val Mallonwey had often speculated on what it would be like to wield the fifth, or what sorts of magic they would craft of the fourth if they’d had the skill—but it was quite another thing to find yourself shifting time with no explanation or understanding of how you were doing it.

  Phaedor left the lad to his confusion and used the time to gather some of the wood that had been scattered in the struggle. He tossed more logs onto the dying flames, sending up a shower of sparks among the smoke, and then tended the fire until it was blazing again.

  Tanis sat up once the flames started scalding
the top of his head. He looked over at the zanthyr to find him seated with an elbow draped over his bent knee, emerald eyes watching him, quiet and intense. The lad frowned. “What?”

  Phaedor arched brows innocently. “I’m waiting for your questions.”

  Tanis grunted and sat back on his heels. “What’s the point of questions? You never answer the important ones anyway.”

  The zanthyr regarded him steadily. “I could tell you everything there was to know in this world, Tanis—the whole of the Sobra I’ternin, should you wish it—yet this knowledge would be of no value to you without the foundation of experience against which to measure it.”

  He tilted his head to engage Tanis in this reasoning, holding the boy’s gaze with his own. “How does one know courage if he has never known fear? Or trust if he’s never known treachery?” He glanced to where the impression of the wolf’s body remained in the soft earth. “How could you understand mercy had you not yourself just known its opposite—and felt the guilt that seizes within you still?”

  Tanis dropped his gaze and clenched his jaw.

  The zanthyr gave him a compassionate look. “Knowledge must be gained at its proper time, Tanis, that its value might be understood, that it might be given the correct significance based on one’s experience—for you cannot say all facts are equally important, any more than you can say all men are compassionate, or all Malorin’athgul are evil.”

  Tanis frowned at this last association. Lifting his gaze back to the zanthyr, he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling exhausted in body and mind. “All right, my lord. What would you tell me of what happened tonight?”

  Phaedor cast him a droll look. “I would tell you that you are your mother’s son. There are things you can do that others cannot.” He cocked his head and regarded Tanis sideways. “Surely this doesn’t surprise you.”

  Tanis thought of the way he healed so quickly. He’d assumed this quality was an attribute of the bond that bound Phaedor to him, but what if it wasn’t?

  The idea made him uncomfortable all over again.

  “No, my lord,” he admitted, accepting if not understanding. “I suppose this idea isn’t new to me.”

  “Tell me now in your view, truthreader: what was it that you did?”

  Tanis thought about it. He mostly just wanted the zanthyr to explain, but he also knew that protesting was a waste of his energies—especially when he was hungry and tired and cold and just wanted to go home. So he thought back to his mother’s lessons, especially her last lesson and how it had begun like all the others, by his staring at a…

  His eyes flew back to Phaedor’s. “The pattern.”

  The zanthyr’s penetrating gaze seemed to hold the idea solidly in front of Tanis that he might better examine it. “Which pattern?”

  “The other morning…the day Loghain arrived, the pattern on my wall. It…” he couldn’t believe he hadn’t connected it before, that he hadn’t realized they were one and the same. “The pattern I used to start my mother’s lesson the other morning…it was the same pattern I saw Loghain use later that day. The…the same pattern I must’ve…”

  “The pattern you used tonight.”

  Gulp. “Yes.” Tanis pushed a hand into his hair and left it there, staring hard at the flames. “But…how could I wield a pattern that I only just saw?” He lifted troubled eyes back to the zanthyr. “I’m no wielder.”

  The zanthyr nudged at the fire with a stick. “There are some few Adepts who have but to see a pattern to inherently grasp its use.”

  “Sure, if it’s a native pattern of your own strand, but…” A little late, Tanis picked up the undertone in the zanthyr’s reply and gave him a sudden suspicious look. “How few?”

  Phaedor grinned. “A very few.”

  Tanis grunted and rubbed at one eye. Something about that answer didn’t seem to fit. It wasn’t just that it startled him to think himself capable of a talent so rare—though it did. Rather, this explanation sort of slid off of Tanis’s mind, like a too-big hat that wouldn’t stay on. But Tanis was too tired to push the zanthyr for a better explanation.

  Phaedor tossed his stick onto the flames and stood. “Come, lad.” He gazed softly down at him. “You’ve done good work today.”

  Tanis frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  But the zanthyr merely held out his hand to help him up.

  Tanis accepted and got to his feet. Strangely, at Phaedor’s touch, the lad felt some of his spunk returning. “So, my lord,” he asked as he brushed the dirt and leaves from his pants again while noticing resentfully how neither mud nor leaf dared cling to the zanthyr’s clothes, “does this mean there are other things I can do? I don’t suppose I could fly, could I?”

  “I don’t advise you try it, truthreader.”

  “What about conjuring fire? Can you show me that pattern?”

  Phaedor arched a dubious brow. “Perhaps if ever I trusted you not to burn down the forest in the attempt.”

  While Tanis was leveling him an injured glare, the zanthyr extinguished the blazing fire behind them with naught but a sideways glance and summoned a portal to deliver them home.

  Seventeen

  “He who has a head of wax should not stand in the sun.”

  – A saying among chandlers

  The Empress of Agasan held court twice each month on a day known as Twelfth-day. For the High Lord Marius di L'Arlesé, that Twelfth-day was ending as most did: after a long, trying afternoon of diplomacy, bureaucracy and—as far as Marius was concerned—no small measure of ill-disguised idiocy.

  “Ambassador Durith-Morgaine,” the Empress’s elae-enhanced voice interrupted both the tall man standing in oratory before her as well as the High Lord’s thoughts. “Surely you don’t presume to explain to me the fundamentals of economics.”

  Standing with his mouth caught somewhat agape, not unlike a trout snagged by a fisherman’s hook, the tall ambassador flushed to the roots of his thinning brown hair and muttered a hasty apology.

  Marius admitted that simply standing before the Diamond Throne could be daunting enough, even without the Empress’s striking form gracing its cushion. The gigantic chair had been created by the wielder Markal Morrelaine during the Fourth Age—called the Summer Age—of Hallian van Gelderan’s rule, in those sunny times before Malachai’s violent storm and the wintry years that followed. Formed with elae, it dwarfed the other gilded thrones behind it and was positioned directly beneath the domed crystal ceiling such that the sun stayed upon it throughout the day. The entire throne sparkled so brilliantly that it made a man’s eyes ache just looking at it.

  Compounding this effect was the Empress herself, whose clinging dress of thread-of-silver was so encrusted with diamonds that it made her seem a universe of radiant stars against the upholstery of black velvet.

  Because Durith-Morgaine still had not formed a suitable reply, the Empress continued in an unrelenting tone, “I needn’t remind you, Ambassador, that Llerenas-Onstaz had its opportunity to unionize and chose against it—”

  “Based on assurances from your Minister of Trade, A-Aurelia,” the man stammered out the Empress’s formal title, “who—who gave us his promise that our wares would find their niche in the marketplace.”

  Llerenas-Onstaz was an independent province located between Rimaldi and Ma’hrkit. Landlocked, they were in the unenviable position of bartering with richer, larger neighbors for the resources they lacked.

  “But the unions have pushed us out of Rimaldi and Vaalden completely,” added a shorter man who stood wringing his hands beside the ambassador. Marius couldn’t recall his name, but he wore the Llerenas-Onstaz sash of the nobility in a diagonal stripe across his pale blue doublet.

  “No one will buy our wares, Aurelia,” the Ambassador finished, “or even stock them in their stores. They’re too afraid of the unions.”

  “The people aren’t buying your wares, Ambassador, because your merchandise is poorly crafted.” The Empress’s e
lae-enhanced voice carried to the far corners of the vast hall, so that even the chamber mice in their subterranean lairs could hear her. “Inferior pottery that chips on first use, and ill-woven carpets that don’t stand up to use aren’t likely to fetch a copper in our civilized empire. Do not seek to blame the unions for Llerenas-Onstaz’s floundering economy. The Empire isn’t responsible for your failures of policy, and we don’t subsidize ventures of enterprise.”

  Quiet but sneering laugher from the seated ranks of the imperial ministry followed these words, and both the ambassador and his noble companion flushed in anger, bowing their heads before the judging ministers and the perverse pleasure of the assembled nobility who had gathered in the vast hall.

  “It seems cruel,” the veiled Princess Nadia van Gelderan murmured from beside Marius. Their thrones were far enough behind the Empress’s that low conversation could go unnoticed.

  Marius turned her a considering look.

  “They’re a small province without the same resources as their neighbors.” When she spoke, the princess’s breath stirred the opalescent veil that covered her face, a long, diaphanous draping held in place by a circlet of emeralds, bright against the pale silk.

  “Verily, Nadia,” Marius agreed. “Membership in the unions would have offered them the expertise of traveling smiths and master craftsmen trained in cultural centers like Sfvat and Faroqhar, but for some reason their government refused the Empress’s generous offer.”

  Now they were eating crow. The Empress would ensure these two chewed and swallowed every last bitter feather before offering them a morsel of help at double the usual price.

  Nadia returned her gaze to the ongoing discussion. “It just seems cruel to me.”

  “Perhaps it is.” Marius arched a resigned brow and let out a slow exhale. “Would that governing were more about governing and less about business, Nadia, but governments need income to function.” He captured his daughter’s gaze with his own, faint though hers appeared beneath the sheer layer of silk. “The people blame the government if the economy falters—by the Sanctos, they blame the government if the fish aren’t biting. So the government becomes a clearing house for the empire’s trade. This is ever the way of things.”