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

by Melissa McPhail

  Ean nodded, swallowed, collected the shards of his composure. If he’d built the welds of an entire realm—enduring all of the forces such activity entailed—he could certainly stand upon the pattern of this world for a few heartbeats.

  Resolved at least to try, Ean took Isabel’s hand. “Call the others.”

  He focused while she did so, closing his eyes to everything except the feeling of the currents. When he opened them again, he’d summoned the pattern to reveal elae’s tides in their fullness. He saw how the currents swirled like water in a drain in the center of the nodecourt, and he drew Isabel with him as he moved towards that vortex.

  Ean wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he stepped upon the node itself—a sensation of vertigo, some uncomfortable tingling, perhaps—but casting himself onto the Pattern of the World felt more akin to diving into the raging rapids of a river of lava in flood.

  The fury of this power could not be described. Nothing in the living world matched it—no hurricane, no cyclone, no tidal wave even approached its violence. If all such storms that had ever been were simultaneously combined and channeled along a single current—then one might approach the sheer voltage raging forever through the pattern.

  Ean felt like he was being ripped apart.

  “You must become the conductor!” Isabel’s voice was an urgent command, but he hardly heard her for the roaring in his ears, like a waterfall surging and churning inside his skull, drowning breath, drowning thought... You must become the bridge between the points.

  Ean reeled in the onslaught. It felt like being unmade…

  Isabel’s voice sounded distant, as if she called from a far hill. “Ean, you must do this. You can do this! Ean—they’re coming…”

  Necessity recalled him to himself, but it recalled something more. For now he felt the Pattern of the World inside him, as if it had imprinted on every part of him, and he realized he’d felt this before…this remaking of himself within the Pattern of the World, only that time it had…saved him?

  Memory surfaced, bringing knowingness and understanding of what he must do. Ean cast his awareness through the pattern, seeking the node of their destination. He flowed with that tide, riding the raging rapids, until he saw the beacon for which he searched. Finding it, he thrust himself into it. Another dive into another fiery pool, but now he understood they were both eddies in the same river, though no waters connected them. He would become that connection.

  Like opening the tap, Ean drew upon the energy of the node he stood on and then directed it to where another version of himself floated in the eddy of the other node. Instantly he felt a force pulling violently at him, tearing him away. He resisted it and firmly anchored his awareness in both eddies.

  Streams of light invaded his senses, and for a moment he felt as if part of him stood in both places at once, or as if his body had expanded to bridge the entire distance between them. He had some sensation of others, shadowed forms, more impression than substance, moving past. Then he could resist the forces raging through him no longer. One end slipped with a violent snap, and the world exploded into spiraling light.

  ***

  Ean woke to the clamorous ringing of bells, which spawned an eruption of children’s voices chattering excitedly in a language that sounded like the desert tongue. Ean thought he heard the word for ‘hungry’ and definitely the word for ‘stupid’ shouted more than once.

  White netting draped the canopy bed in which he lay. Turning his head towards the voices, he saw doors open to a balcony covered in vines. The breeze that stirred the silk curtains already held spring’s coming warmth. Across the room, Isabel’s knapsack rested on a chair, but of his lady love, he saw no sign. Ean swung his bare legs over the bed and rose, noting in his nakedness that someone’s care had erased the vestiges of battle and his brother’s blood from his skin.

  Across the room, a green kurta embroidered with gold thread hung from an armoire beside shalwars of the same expensive silk cloth. Woven gold slippers rested on the floor beneath these. On a table near the doors waited a domed silver platter, the fragrance out of which—wafting as it was across the room and directly into his nose—roused an impatient growl from Ean’s stomach.

  A host of questions paraded through the prince’s head as he dressed and ate. Then he headed out of his room to seek some answers—

  And drew up short in front of a boy crouched in the passage.

  Dark-haired and brown-eyed, with the sloping nose of the desert tribes but a very impish chin, he looked up as Ean appeared in the doorway, flashed a devilish grin, and bolted from seating into a sprint without assuming any of the stages in between. Belled anklets jangled as he ran.

  Ean followed him—or at least the sound of his passing—through grandiose halls of scalloped archways and ceilings painted with brilliant arabesques, past vast rooms tiled with spiraling designs, and finally beneath a spectacular mosaic arch in the shape of peacock tails. Beyond this, a grand, golden hall awaited. It’s walls and groin-vaulted ceiling were entirely covered in swirling, gilded patterns. The only straight edges were those that led the eye upwards.

  Ean caught sight of the boy halfway across the wide hall, heading towards a group of three men. They were all dark-haired and caramel-skinned, like the boy running towards them.

  The tallest of the three stood shirtless with his arms extended. The other two men were securing a framework of gold chains around his torso. The framework resembled a cuirass in shape and hugged the man’s muscular form. Even from afar, Ean saw patterns inscribed along the metal straps and on each gold plate where the chains connected.

  The boy was talking excitedly in the desert tongue as Ean neared, whereupon the man in the center lowered his arms and turned with a smile. His white teeth shone against his caramel skin, gleaming almost as brightly as his colorless eyes. He wore his black hair short and his jaw clean-shaved—a strong jaw, with a deeply cleft chin—while black brows angled humorously over his tell-tale truthreader’s eyes. In the center of his forehead he bore a black tattoo, intricately patterned, which spiraled along the line of his brows. A large tear-drop ruby dangled from one ear. It occasionally caught the sunlight pouring down from the hall’s high windows.

  He opened arms broadly to the prince. “Ah, Prince Ean val Lorian, awake at last! Salam, khosh amadid.” He pressed palms together and gave Ean a polite nod—not quite a bow, but almost.

  Ean recognized the form of respect as one used regularly among the Kandori nobility—which would also explain the man’s bow, for it had been just deep enough to mark them as equals.

  “Salam, zohr bekheir,” Ean returned, mirroring the other’s bow. Straightening, he looked at the other two dark-eyed men and back to the smiling first. “I confess my ignorance. I don’t actually know where I am.”

  “But of course, you are in Kandori,” said his truthreader host, opening his arms again to the room at large, “and this is the palace of Andorr, ancestral home of the Haxamanis family. My home.”

  Ean had only a rudimentary understanding of the Kandori princedoms, for the lineages and hereditary successors to Kandori’s nine royal houses were confusingly complex, but if any one house could be said to rule over the others, Haxamanis would be it. Alyneri had been birthed of that line, the only daughter of Prince Jair.

  Ean regarded his smiling host. He was indeed in royal company. “Then you’re Dareios.”

  Dareios pressed both hands to his heart. “Khaneh shomast.” My home is your home. He extended a hand towards the two men standing with him, whereupon Ean noted, among his other jeweled rings, the two thin gold bands on his fourth finger that proclaimed his Sormitáge training. “This is my cousin Bahman and his brother-by-marriage, Naveed. They assist me in my workshop.”

  “Your workshop?”

  “Yes, I like to tinker with things—such as this vest, for example, an invention of mine which harnesses the power of the fourth to protect the wearer from his enemies.”

  Ean imagined such a de
vice would prove valuable protection when you stood to inherit the realm’s greatest fortune. No doubt the Kandori prince suffered many covetous factions seeking his life.

  “But I must apologize for the informal nature of this meeting.” Dareios mussed the hair of the young boy, perhaps seven years of age, who stood at his side. “This little scamp was meant to bring us to you when you woke, not the other way around.”

  The boy grinned broadly.

  “He was at least easy to follow,” Ean offered with a friendly smile.

  “Ah yes. The bells.” Dareios cast the boy a look. “He wears them because he makes so much mischief.”

  Ean thought of himself at that age and smiled. “The bells help keep him out of trouble?”

  “Heavens no, but at least this way we know where he’s stirring it up.”

  Dareios looked to Bahman then, who handed him a kurta of blue silk embroidered with gold. Putting this on over the odd metal vest, he noted Ean’s gaze and grinned. “No doubt you’ve never seen the likes of this contraption. Here, I’ll show you how it works.” He extended his jaw and motioned to it with a waggling finger. “Hit me.”

  Ean blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Yes—yes,” Dareios waved Ean to come at him.

  Ean cast him a dubious look.

  “I’ll do it,” Naveed said enthusiastically. He drew a curved dagger from his hip and struck at Dareios.

  The dagger skimmed harmlessly off the air a hand’s span away from the Kandori prince, but the resulting rebound against Naveed sent him spiraling through the air.

  Dareios arched a triangular brow as the man landed in a tangle. “Now that is interesting.” Then he shoved hands on his hips and barked a laugh. “Good thing you resisted the temptation, Ean. You saved me the necessity of an embarrassing apology.”

  Across the way, Naveed pushed up to hands and knees and shook his head.

  Dareios stroked an eyebrow with his forefinger. “The second-strand induction pattern should’ve handled that field refraction.”

  “Could be a problem with the flux constant across the field,” Bahman said.

  Dareios shifted his eyes to him. “Some error with surface normal calibration.”

  The man nodded. “I’ll check the pattern alignment and make a new plate.” He went over and looped his arm around his brother-by-marriage and hauled him to his feet. He slapped him good-naturedly on the back as they headed off together.

  Dareios swatted the boy on the bottom. “Go help them.”

  He trotted off with a jingle-jingle-jingle.

  “He is your son?” Ean asked.

  Dareios watched the boy go wearing a slight frown. “My great-nephew. My wife and I had only daughters.” Abruptly he pressed palms together, touched fingertips to his forehead and then lifted prayerful hands to the heavens and shook them at the ceiling. Ean couldn’t be sure if this gesture was meant to convey to the gods his frustration or his contrition.

  Dareios looked back to Ean, and wisdom and humor both danced in his eyes. “The Kandori believe princely souls are born of the gods. There is a story that says that when a royal prince and a woman mate on earth, the Goddess Inithiya must mate with her god-brother Huhktu in case a child is conceived of the union.” He rubbed at one eyebrow. “Far-fetched, I know. With all the rampant sex of the royalty in this world, Inithiya would never get a moment’s separation from her brother’s loins. Then again, time has different meaning to the gods.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it is true after all.”

  Ean smiled. “Far be it from me to question what a god can do.”

  “A wise answer, Prince of Dannym.” Dareios gave him an approving nod and a grin. “The story goes on to warn that if a prince of Kandori lies with too many women, Inithiya may become vexed with him—for the Goddess of Spirit has better things to do, after all, than be harem-girl to the God of Bones—and in return, she may send the over-enthusiastic prince only daughters, that he might understand better the terrors of being a father of beautiful girls.” He pressed palms together and thumbs to his forehead. Then he shook his head, lamenting, “This, Ean…this has been my certain fate.”

  “It doesn’t seem such a terrible end to be blessed with beautiful daughters.” Ean meant this sentiment, yet even as he spoke it, he realized that he couldn’t conceive of a life so normal as to make a home with Isabel and fill it with children. This truth bothered him deeply.

  “Yes,” Dareios agreed meanwhile, eyes dancing, “but twelve of them?”

  Ean chuckled. He could only imagine trying to corral a dozen Kandori girls, all no doubt with Alyneri’s headstrong spirit.

  As if to chastise Dareios’s lack of gratitude for the blessing of many lovely daughters, a growl came from between two of the triform columns, and Ean looked over to see an enormous wildcat arching its back in a stretch. It pushed its haunches out behind it and then padded soundlessly towards them.

  Ean felt his hand instinctively reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. “Is that—”

  “That is Babar.” Dareios looked somewhat pained. He rubbed at one eyebrow again. “She makes a general nuisance of herself and claims all property as her own, as cats and wives will. Would that I could keep bells around her feet as easily as around young Sarosh’s, but Babar is far less obedient than my nephew.” He clapped a hand on Ean’s shoulder. “Fear not, however. Babar prefers the meat of my enemies.”

  “That’s…fortunate.” Ean watched the cat settle at Dareios’s feet and begin licking her paw, which entailed a necessary spreading of lengthy, razor-sharp claws. Sitting, her tawny head lay within easy reach of Dareios’s fingers, so he dutifully scratched between her ears. Ean couldn’t help but wonder exactly what criteria the wildcat used in deciding who was her master’s enemy and if an animal could really be trusted to make that assessment on its own.

  Dareios shifted his gaze to Ean, and his expression sobered measurably. “No doubt you will want to see your brother. Come.” He led away, and after a few steps, Babar stood and followed on silent paws. “When I checked on them last, your Isabel and my sisters were about to begin resetting the bones in your brother’s hands.” He cast a Ean sidelong look. “You’re blessed to have the dead returned to you…nearly whole.”

  “Is he? Whole, that is?” Ean thought of the web of patterns encasing his brother’s mind and suppressed a violent burst of fury. He’d sworn to free Sebastian from that net, but he had yet to determine how to go about it without killing him in the process.

  Dareios must’ve heard this thought—Ean hadn’t exactly been guarding his mind, though he reminded himself to do so thereafter, for it was only polite when in the company of a truthreader—for the Kandori prince offered, “That is why she brought you to me: in the hope I might be able to help you.”

  Ean turned to him. “How is that?”

  “It’s my specialty. I’m a Patternist.” Ean must’ve looked blank, for Dareios added, “Like mathematics, patterns are their own language. Every curl, every angle, every intersection—they all speak to purpose and action.”

  Ean stared at him. “You speak the language of patterns.”

  Dareios pressed a ringed hand to his chest with a humble smile. “I am…one of the best.”

  When Ean reached his brother’s room, Sebastian was stretched out on a long table. His dislocated shoulders had been carefully set and bound in linen, and now a host of beautiful women draped in colorful silks were carefully aligning his fingers within the frame of two plaster molds. Once the bones were set properly, the women staked each finger between needles stuck into the still-soft plaster. Isabel worked among them, checking their progress and murmuring quietly in the desert tongue. She clearly hadn’t slept.

  Ean couldn’t look upon her without feeling an immense sense of pride and wonder. In this life he hardly knew her—though he knew her instinctively in so many fundamental ways, yet much about her remained a mystery to him. In every respect, life with Isabel was an adventure, each day revealing to him some ne
w quality of hers to be explored. She was as the wide sea; he could never delve all of her depths.

  Yet now, seeing Isabel brought an uncommon heartache and a heaviness to his thoughts, for he could no longer look upon her without experiencing the fear of losing her. Almost worse was knowing he’d felt that fear before.

  To keep from dwelling on those soul-shadows, Ean asked in a low voice, so as not to disturb the Healers, “Where did they get the molds for his hands?”

  “I believe they used yours, Prince of Dannym.” Dareios cast him a wry smile. “My sister Ehsan said of you while you slept that if Death himself had come calling, he would’ve had to wait for you to waken.”

  Ean grimaced. “Please don’t tell me that was four days ago.”

  “Last night,” Dareios replied with a curious look.

  Isabel lifted her blindfolded gaze from her work and came over to them. She took Ean’s face in her hands and kissed him, and ran her thumb over his lips as she withdrew. In that moment, brief though it was, Ean knew only Isabel—her touch, her smell, the feeling of their bond resonating…

  Pulling away, she gifted Dareios with a smile. “I see he found his way into good hands.”

  “As did this one,” Dareios replied, nodding to Sebastian. “He looks hale compared to his state upon your arrival.”

  Isabel turned a slight frown back towards the sleeping prince. “We’re finally resetting his fingers. In some cases the bones were so crushed that I needed to rebuild them before they could be reset.” She pushed a strand of hair from her face and exhaled. “It’s been a long night, but we have hope for his recovery.”

  Feeling a surge of gratitude and affinity that was nearly overwhelming, Ean drew Isabel into his embrace and murmured into her hair, “You are a miracle.”

  Isabel hugged him in return. Then she drew back and settled her hidden gaze on both princes. “Be ready. As soon as he wakes, I’ll call for you.”

  She returned to the others.

  Dareios put a hand on Ean’s shoulder. “Join me for the noonday meal?”