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

by Melissa McPhail

  Suddenly the lad felt small indeed. His face heated with embarrassment. He wished he might drop his eyes but the zanthyr had skewered him with his gaze, so he rubbed at one eye and murmured, “You mean…they’re not?”

  Phaedor rolled his eyes and straightened again. “The lessons are in you, lad.”

  Tanis stared at him with confusion swamping his thoughts. It seemed the whole room was shifting and oozing, walls and furniture morphing into unrecognizable new shapes. “But…” Tanis decided he should sit and sank dispiritedly onto the chair.

  The zanthyr cast him a droll look. “Do you really believe that your mother would send you off into the world without knowing everything you needed to know to find your path?” His tone was gentle but not without a hint of reproach. Phaedor went back to sorting his weapons. “No, Tanis. Her lessons are stored in your mind. You need only remember them.”

  Feeling utterly the fool, Tanis shuffled back to his rooms with none of the assertiveness that had driven him forth; indeed, the tide of fervent indignation had fled back to sea, leaving naught but drenched sands lying flaccid with chagrin.

  Reaching his bedchamber, the lad placed his fingers lightly upon one of the patterns and idly traced its intricate design. In my head? But how…?

  And then it finally made sense.

  The way she never quite looked at him yet spoke as if he were right there… These were memories. Memories of lessons his mother had given him when he was still a babe.

  Tanis stood still for a long time with his hand on the silk paneling, overwhelmed by gratitude and love for his mother. That she would have cared so for him, that she could have seen to prepare him in such a…a magical way…it defied comprehension.

  His throat tight, Tanis looked across the room to the wooden box his mother had so often paused to rest her hand upon. He’d never thought to open it, but now he knew that he must.

  The golden wood chest had been lacquered to a high shine. Delicate and complex scrollwork of inlaid gold detailed the lid, while a band of sapphires demarked the parting. It was a lovely thing. Tanis lifted the cover on the hinged top until it held on the leather straps that secured it.

  A folded letter lay inside with his name written on it in a flowing script. With the greatest of care, Tanis lifted the letter from the box and unfolded it. He read:

  Tanis, my dearest son,

  By now you must have come to know that these illusions are but memories of me, lessons that I gave you when you were too young to understand the words, but now that you have facility with language, they become clear.

  As you discovered, I locked each lesson in your memory with a pattern. The patterns I painted upon your walls were triggers for these early lessons. There are more lessons to be remembered—for I have given you much knowledge that it may assist and protect you when the need arises. Don’t be surprised if the dappled sunshine upon the grass wakens a new understanding. All things are composed of patterns, and their echo can be sensed in everything we touch and see.

  I hope you will not think it vain of me that within these patterns I placed some small illusion as well, that you might better remember my face in the retelling. It was only my wish that you would remember me; and with the idea—the hope—that you also would want to remember, I crafted a little magic on behalf of us both. I pray you will forgive me this indulgence.

  It seemed his mother had known his desires before he did. Gratitude gripped Tanis in a powerful hold. His mother’s lessons became even more special now that he knew these were actual moments they’d shared together once, and again. There was something profound to him in this connection…how his past and his present were bridged across a wide span of years. The recent lessons seemed to have married his infant past—which previously had no existence at all—to his adolescent present, so that an important piece of his younger self found its place within the whole of who he was.

  Smiling quietly, Tanis went back to the letter.

  I’ve left you something of mine. No doubt you will recognize the little amulet I often wore. I’m sorry to disappoint you in the knowledge there is no magic within it. It won’t call the wind for you or make you invisible to your enemies, but it was special to me, and I wanted you to have something that I loved in the hope that you might find it dear as well.

  Tanis set down the letter and looked deeper into the box. It held four leather-bound books wrapped in worn ribbon, and two small velvet bags. Tanis opened the first bag and emptied its contents onto his palm. Twenty or so thin gold rings tumbled out. Each was sized for a man, and each band was etched with intricate designs.

  In the second bag, he found his mother’s necklace.

  The silver amulet, no bigger than his thumb, looked much like a seal of wax—and indeed, on its other side, Tanis saw that a stamp had been pressed into the metal, a circle crossed by three intersecting lines forming the A of the iederal’a, the ancient symbol of the Adept race.

  The chain was long enough to slip over his head, so Tanis donned it and placed the little amulet inside his tunic, liking the sensation of it next to his skin. His mother had said there was no magic in it, yet he felt somehow closer to her for having it around his neck.

  Going back to her letter, Tanis read:

  The journals belonged to your father. He wanted you to have them. Alas, you will not find his life’s story upon these pages, nor even much of his rationale for the choices he made. His journals were ever a repository for his thoughts, sometimes jumbled and senseless, sometimes profound; they were a place where he could reflect on lessons and friendships, on philosophy and theories new and bold.

  These bequeathed to you were written during his early years in the Sormitáge—a carefree time in his life, before duty, love and sacrifice became an inseparable part of him.

  If at times his writing seems cagey, his descriptions of others vague, I suspect it is only that he knew even then that men would be looking to him, watching to see what he would become; and though your father was proclaimed to be many things, it was never said that he was cruel.

  You are little yet at the time of this writing—just eighteen scant months of life have we shared, you and I; yet I believe there is much of your father in your build, and of me, perhaps, in your heart. You have your father’s coloring and features, but I expect that now if you look within the mirror, you will see a little of me in your eyes, and of both of us in your smile.

  Know always that I love you.

  Tanis set down the letter and pulled out the four journals. They were each bound in worn black leather and tied with braided ribbons that might’ve once been violet but were now faded to brown. An intricate, looping pattern adorned each leather cover. It seemed to have been stamped into the leather, but Tanis rather wondered if elae instead had been used in the crafting.

  He longed to open the notebooks and spend the day reading each of them from cover to cover, but the sun was well and truly rising, and any moment now Madaé Lisbeth would no doubt call him to depart.

  Still, Tanis couldn’t quite bring himself to put the journals down. Here was a lifeline to his father, a repository for his own private thoughts and even written in his own hand—and he’d wanted Tanis, his son, to have these things!

  Until that moment, Tanis hadn’t realized just how desperately he sought to know his father. Through his many recent lessons, his mother had become nearly as real in memory as she’d been in life, but his father…the man retained an almost ghostlike quality in Tanis’s memory—naught but a voice in a distant dream.

  Here now, in his journals, was proof that the man had lived, that he was not merely a figment of Tanis’s imagination nor simply the shadow that crossed the zanthyr’s face upon an unfavorable recollection. Suddenly, his father’s journals were more precious to Tanis than anything he’d ever owned.

  Realizing he’d been clutching them to his chest for some time, Tanis reluctantly set them down.

  Though he knew he’d reached the end, he still looked back to the let
ter wishing more might somehow appear. But there was only her profession of love and beneath it, a pattern embossed in the parchment, its impression just visible.

  Tanis traced the imprint with his fingers until he felt sure he would never forget it. Then he read the entire letter again.

  Finally he folded the letter and replaced it within the golden-wood box. A part of him wanted to take it and the box along, but he knew if he did, it would become worn with time and reading, her lovely handwriting faded or smeared, the pages torn. But here…left within the mansion, it would remain protected by his father’s spells, kept as pristine as the day his mother set quill and ink to the page.

  The journals he took with him, placing them inside the satchel that Madaé Lisbeth had so cunningly left behind. Then he dressed and said his goodbyes to the room of his youth.

  An hour ago, he’d been anxiety-ridden at the thought of leaving his mother behind; now, he knew he carried both of his parents with him…and that he always had.

  It was still early when Tanis took leave of the villa staff. Madaé Lisbeth and Madaé Giselle hugged him quick and hard, and Nathalia smiled and handed him his bag ‘for the road.’ Then he and Phaedor were climbing into an open carriage with Birger at the reins and heading off west, past the stables and the servants’ quarters, along a grassy track toward the sea.

  The day had dawned fair, a good omen for any journey, and though the winter wind was brisk off the water, it carried a hint of spring. Tanis pulled his cloak closer around him and enjoyed the warmth of the sun.

  Sitting across from him with arms outstretched along the back of the seat, the zanthyr gazed off to his right, over the open water. The sea breeze blew his raven hair back from his face, while the sun goldened his profile. Tanis thought if ever a creature had been made in the image of a god, it was Phaedor.

  Smiling with the contemplation of what the zanthyr would probably say to this idea, Tanis asked, “My lord, where are we heading?”

  “To Vesper Harbor. It’s your family’s private mooring and the only place for a hundred leagues where a ship can safely anchor.”

  This news made Tanis unexpectedly fluttery inside. “So there really is a ship?”

  “I said as much a moon ago, Tanis.”

  “You say a lot of things. Twice a thing for every one thing you say, most of the time.”

  Phaedor cast him an amused eye at this.

  Tanis narrowed his in return. “Are we really going to Faroqhar, my lord?”

  The zanthyr shifted on his seat, turned his gaze fully on the boy, and remarked with an infuriatingly bland smile, “I suppose we shall have to ask the High Lord Marius di L'Arlesé as to the destination of his ship.”

  Tanis gave him a long, flat look.

  The zanthyr just grinned until the boy turned away, shaking his head.

  Their road traced the top of the cliffs and offered an unrestricted view of the open sea, which sparkled almost too brightly to look upon. The horses kept an even pace under Birger’s steady hand, and gulls cried their morning song to the distant accompaniment of the waves. Tanis knew he would miss this place, but he no longer felt sad to be leaving; he just wished he might’ve found that beach.

  Remembering the dream where he’d heard that sound led his thoughts back to his mother’s letter. He thought about that feeling of connectedness he now shared with her, and he wondered if he would’ve felt so close to her if he’d known all along that her lessons were merely his own memories—if graced with a little magic to make their recollection more vivid. He didn’t think he would’ve felt the same.

  It was the first time Tanis truly saw a value in taking things as they came…in allowing the curious and inexplicable events of his life to unfold in their proper time, without demanding to know what’s next, without needing the constant reassurance of understanding, only trusting that whatever came next was the next thing that needed to come.

  The lad’s gaze shifted back to Phaedor and he sighed. “You were right, my lord.”

  As the zanthyr turned to look at him, the wind blew his hair across his brilliant green eyes, and he flipped it out of his way with a practiced toss of his head. “Verily?” He eyed Tanis with the shadow of a smile. “I am most intrigued to learn what could’ve happened to make it so.”

  Tanis frowned at him. “I have decided,” the boy returned, settling him a disapproving look, “that there are some things we need to learn in the time we’re meant to learn them, and knowing them sooner would…well, it would lessen them somehow, lessen the importance of them in our eyes.”

  Phaedor’s emerald gaze sparkled like the sea. “Found your mother’s letter, did you?”

  Tanis’s mouth dropped ajar. “If you knew about the letter, why didn’t—” Then he stopped himself, for of course he knew why the zanthyr had kept the letter secret. The lad puffed out his breath and turned his gaze toward the sea again. It was going to take some practice, this letting things just…come.

  Which made Tanis wonder…

  “My lord, does everyone have but to walk their path and things will just fall into place as though…as though it was all figured out ahead of time?”

  “Nothing is preordained, Tanis. If it were, Balance could not exist.”

  Tanis frowned. “Balance is based on what then? Our choices?”

  “Of course.”

  “That seems too simple,” the boy muttered.

  “Sometimes the choices are simple,” the zanthyr reasoned, “but predicting where each choice will lead? Therein lies the game.”

  Tanis crossed arms and settled the zanthyr a disagreeable look. “You haven’t actually answered the question, you know.”

  Phaedor folded his hands in his lap and propped a booted ankle over his knee. “Very well.” He fixed his gaze upon the lad. “The majority of people in this realm tread the fringes of the great pattern leading inconsequential lives. Be they tailor, soldier, merchant or king, their choices change nothing in the larger image woven in the tapestry. They live their lives disconnected from events quite beyond them, never knowing there is a greater pattern and never needing to.”

  “So in your view, a king leads an inconsequential life?”

  “Most of them, yes.”

  “King Gydryn?” Tanis pressed.

  The zanthyr arched a raven brow. “You would gain your answer faster, truthreader, if you managed fewer interruptions.”

  Tanis closed his mouth.

  “Within the pattern itself walk the Players—those men and women whose choices ultimately shape the future of the world. For them, each choice is important. What may seem an insignificant decision to leave one’s home in the early dawn could mean the beginning or the end of things a century later—oh, yes,” he confirmed, noting the lad’s surprised arch of brow, “the game of Balance is not to be entered into cavalierly, for once a man becomes a Player—once he places his foot upon a thread which impacts the shape of things, forever will that thread be his to walk.”

  Chills striped Tanis upon this declaration. He well remembered their first day together and the zanthyr’s explanation of where they were headed: We walk upon your path, Tanis.

  The lad’s eyes flew to Phaedor’s, and the zanthyr acknowledged his new understanding with the smallest of nods.

  For some reason, this information made Tanis think of Prince Ean and how so much of what had happened during their time together seemed to hinge upon his choices. “Prince Ean must be walking a very important strand then,” Tanis observed.

  Phaedor looked back out to sea. “Ean has but one strand of the pattern to weave. The choices he makes will determine the strength of that strand. His thread is not necessarily more important than any other’s, for it takes every thread to form the pattern. It is the pattern as a whole that’s important.” He turned and settled Tanis a telling look. “And the pattern as a whole is governed by Balance.”

  Tanis nodded his understanding—for he really did understand this concept now. The zanthyr’s explanation br
ought new ideas into perspective, shaping a pattern within Tanis’s own mind which had ever before been out of focus. It was only a shallow beginning, he knew, but Tanis could imagine himself one day being willing to tread deeper into the unfathomable subject of Balance.

  Just not that day.

  The carriage reached the bottom of a winding hill and leveled out just above sea level. There, the trees grew tall, protected by jutting cliffs. As they passed a break between the trees where a trail wound down towards the water, Tanis heard a familiar sound and caught his breath. “Wait! Birger, stop!”

  The dutiful valet-turned-coachman drew rein upon the team, and the horses and carriage came to a smooth halt. Tanis practically threw himself off the seat and sprinted down the path through the trees. Moments later, he emerged upon a beach.

  It was a tiny cove, barely large enough for a single sailboat to safely anchor between rearing grey cliffs streaked white with guano. Between the cliffs, dark waves broke on a short, shallow beach comprised of egg-shaped stones.

  He’d found the beach from his dream at last.

  Tanis walked across the stony shore listening to that sound…the incredible sound of churning sea and rolling stone, dual elements married forever in a perpetual ebb and flow. It was exactly the sound he remembered, so true that he could almost hear his mother and father’s conversation again. A cloud moved off the sun, and strong rays shone down upon the protected span of sea cove, illuminating its depths so fully that the water gleamed the truest topaz blue.

  Tanis grinned so broadly his cheeks began to ache.

  He felt the zanthyr coming up behind him just before he saw his shadow on the beach. “This is Cora Cove,” Phaedor said as he neared. “Your mother came here often.”