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

by Melissa McPhail

  They followed the Endoge into an immense atrium. The entire place was awash with frescoes, cornices and elaborate sculptures, but even this display of opulence didn’t prepare Tanis for the dome they next passed beneath, or the endless passage the dome opened onto. Wider even than Calgaryn Palace’s famed Boulevard, its immense ceiling appeared as a river of color and gold extending into infinity.

  Everyone they passed—be they student, docent or maestro—scattered like birds to make way, despite there being room enough for an entire military procession to pass abreast. Tanis was grateful for Marius’s notoriety, though, for with all eyes pinned to the High Lord, no one in the least noticed the nameless boy walking in his shadow.

  ***

  As Marius walked at the Endoge’s side, his thoughts vacillated between the mystery of Tanis’s origins and the still-unresolved disappearances of Sormitáge Adepts, of which Malin van Drexel’s remained the most pressingly disturbing. Though the forum lacked privacy, necessity and his recent absence urged him to speak.

  “Liam, how proceeds the investigation?”

  The Endoge cast him a troubled look. “The interrogation of the maestros continues with astonishing discretion, Your Grace, doubtless aided by the fact that all who are read are truthbound to silence about their questioning before departing the interrogation room.”

  “I knew you would be most adept at handling the matter, Liam.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace. Unfortunately, nothing has yet come to light, save some minor indiscretions—and some not so minor,” he added with an intemperate frown, “but we’re attending to each accordingly. As much as I shudder to imagine one of our own behind these disappearances, it pains me almost more to continue forth with no hint of the cause.”

  Marius cast him a furtive eye and asked in an even lower voice, “And the missing volume from the Archives?”

  The Endoge shook his head, his lips pursed tightly.

  Marius worked the muscles of his jaw and gazed forward again. He knew he had to be missing some important clue in all of this—but what could it be?

  As they were climbing a flight of wide marble stairs, the Endoge broke their mutual silence by offering, “In regards to our earlier conversation, High Lord, and your interest in any exceptional students, there is another to which I might call your attention. He’s recently gained his Nodefinder’s ring at only fifteen and shows extraordinary promise.”

  “To be certain. Tell me of him.”

  “The boy is Felix di Sarcova della Buonara.”

  “Another Sarcova son?”

  “The youngest of the nine—this one is from the fourth wife, I believe.” The Endoge pressed a finger thoughtfully against his lips. “Buonara…yes, number four. The boy is quite naturally talented. He also seems to have a penchant for finding his way into places he doesn’t belong—extreme even for an adolescent Nodefinder—no offense to Your Grace.”

  The High Lord arched a wry brow. “I recall a number of transgressions while exploring my craft as a youth, Liam. An absence of good judgment and common sense is a natural failing of second-strand sons.”

  “Nor are these qualities lacking merely in second-stranders, Your Grace,” Liam admitted, “though I fear Felix’s failings may extend beyond his innate nature. That is, I suspect the boy of a lack of self-discipline when faced with certain possessions of value that do not, strictly speaking, belong to him.”

  Marius gave him a hard look. “A thief?”

  The Endoge sighed. “We have as yet been unable to prove he’s stolen anything from within the many restricted spaces where he’s been caught.” He sounded disappointed. “But this only makes me more suspicious. Why risk expulsion if not for the purpose of thievery?”

  Marius could think of quite a few reasons, but he said only, “You’ve truthread him, of course.”

  “The boy has an uncommon ability to vacate his mind completely.”

  Marius arched brows at the Endoge’s uncharacteristically dispirited tone and suppressed a smile. “I must meet this boy.”

  “Pray keep him in your sights, Your Grace.” Liam gave him a weary look of caution. “For all his ability, I’m not sure we shall be able to recommend him to the Guild.”

  “I’m astonished to hear such despondency from you, Liam. What has the boy done to so erode your faith in the efficacy of this ‘perfect educational system,’ if you will forgive my quoting you?”

  “Near-perfect, Your Grace,” the Endoge corrected. Then he sighed. “I remain in the deepest mystery as to how the Sarcova boy is finding his way about the university’s restricted spaces. Three weeks ago, Maestro Helsing came upon Felix in his wine cellar, which is trace-sealed and bound with the fifth—a bit excessive for a wine cellar, I’ll admit. Nevertheless, the point is that the boy found his way inside.”

  Marius turned him an amused look. “What was his explanation?”

  “He said he fell in.”

  “Did he?”

  “As impossible as it sounded,” Liam remarked sourly, “I couldn’t find another truth within his consciousness to contradict his statement.”

  They turned down another long passage wide enough for fifteen horses to walk abreast and proceeded beneath its ceiling of luminous art. “A week ago, the Imperial Curator caught Felix after midnight in the Ancient Weapons wing of the Primär Insamling. The cases were undisturbed, else I would’ve had to expel him instead of imposing a fine and penance of fifty hours in service.”

  Marius chuckled.

  The Endoge continued restlessly, “Not a day later, Felix disrupted the entire Physical and Theoretical Sciences wing when he appeared atop the dome of the astrological observatory across the quad—”

  “On top of the dome, did you say?”

  “Veritably, Your Grace,” Liam grumbled sourly. He speared Marius with a piercing look. “The boy even has the audacity to claim to have walked the highest levels of Kha-Faelling Tower.”

  Marius barked a surprised laugh before he could stop himself.

  The Endoge wore a look of withering malcontent. “Even I haven’t seen the highest levels of Kha-Faelling. The nodes to those levels have been twisted for centuries.”

  “Yet you truthread him and uncovered...?”

  “I read him within an inch of his life,” scowled the Endoge, leaving little question as to the result of the interrogation. “And then, just yesterday, Literato N’abranaacht found the boy snooping in his own locked office and nearly took his head off with a saber before he realized the boy was a student and thus need be accorded a certain measure of restraint.”

  “N’abranaacht,” Marius murmured, his faint Calabrian accent sounding the name NAH-brah-nokt. “I don’t think I’ve met the literato. What’s his specialty?”

  “Oh, he’s become quite the talk of late. He’s an Arcane Scholar recently returned from Myacene with some…well let’s say some interesting patterns and artifacts that have created quite a stir. The Order of Sobra Scholars is reviewing them as we speak.”

  “Intriguing. I’d be interested in a report when they’ve finished their study of his findings.”

  “Most assuredly. I should be pleased to arrange a meeting with the literato if you so desire it.”

  “At a later time, perhaps, Liam.”

  The Endoge gave a courteous nod of acquiescence. “Of course, Your Grace.”

  ***

  The Endoge’s office spanned two stories, the main floor of which contained an enormous library. Tanis had never seen such a collection of ancient-looking books, with many set behind glass cases or otherwise on protected display. Upon arrival, the Endoge, Marius and Giancarlo immediately vanished up a curving staircase to the second level and the Endoge’s private study, leaving Tanis with Vincenzé.

  Feeling a bit out of sorts—said feeling being compounded by the anticipation of whatever testing Invocation would require—Tanis lowered himself onto a long, upholstered bench and pressed his hands between his knees.

  “Nervous?” Vincenzé
sat down beside Tanis and gave the lad a grin.

  Tanis turned him a considering look. Vincenzé was exceptionally vocal in his thoughts—so vocal that Tanis had begun to wonder if the man was testing him somehow, as if he wanted Tanis to hear him. Tanis saw something of the character of a devious cat in Vincenzé, and the lad was chary of being swatted with a claw. “Should I be?”

  Vincenzé flashed a wider grin. “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On a lot of things.”

  Tanis frowned at him. “Like what?”

  “Well…” he gave him a sly smile, “you know…students don’t usually get admitted outside of Invocation. The maestros want their pupils raised in straight little rows, all neat and tidy like a line of graves. Admitting a student outside of Invocation disturbs their morbid sense of order.”

  “That would be fine with me,” Tanis muttered. He would just as soon have returned to the zanthyr’s side—if only ‘his path’ would divert in that unlikely direction.

  Vincenzé arched brows. “You’re not hoping to gain your rings, truthreader?”

  Tanis gave him a level look. “I don’t think a few gold rings make the wielder, do you?”

  The man flashed another grin, but there was agreement in it for all it was taunting as well. Vincenzé leaned back on one elbow and extended long legs out before him. “So tell me, young Tanis, how did you come to travel with the zanthyr Phaedor?”

  With the question, Tanis felt a sudden compulsion to tell Vincenzé his entire life story—all about how the zanthyr had brought him to Fersthaven and how he was bound to him—when all Tanis would have intended to speak about was their quest with Prince Ean.

  A sudden suspicion took root on the heels of this, and Tanis darted a glance at Vincenzé’s hands. His left sported a large, engraved carnelian ring that might’ve been a family heirloom, but Tanis saw that upon his right hand, Vincenzé wore an unmistakable gold band on each of his middle three fingers.

  Tanis met his gaze neutrally then. “Are you testing me, sir?”

  Vincenzé barked a laugh. “So you know the taste of compulsion, do you? And do you know, too, how much it tells me that you could so easily resist it?”

  “Not as much as you hoped it would.” Tanis easily plucked that thought from Vincenzé’s mind.

  Vincenzé laughed louder that time. “Well noted!” His blue eyes looked Tanis up and down again with appreciation.

  “You’re a Nodefinder by birth, are you not, sir?”

  Vincenzé nodded.

  “And you’ve worked the Pattern of Life?”

  This time the man looked genuinely surprised. “Right again. How…?”

  “Your thoughts are very loud, sir. It doesn’t take much skill to hear them.”

  Vincenzé regarded him admiringly. “Even so? What other secrets have you gleaned from my outspoken skull?”

  “Only that you’re quite willing to use whatever skills with the lifeforce you possess to gain some answers out of the ‘zanthyr’s boy.’” Privately, Tanis still suspected that the man was purposefully shoving such thoughts his way.

  Vincenzé pursed lips as he gazed at Tanis. “No wonder you don’t trust me, eh? I suppose that’s a hazard of poking around in a man’s head—”

  “I wasn’t poking!” Tanis protested, glaring at him.

  “—without the context of his perspective to frame them,” Vincenzé finished. He sat up and gazed at Tanis with his dark brows furrowed. “My honest apologies, Tanis. Whatever else I might’ve intended here, I didn’t mean to make myself a threat in your eyes. The High Lord is most curious about you—which curiosity you must admit is more than justified—and it’s long been my duty to ferret out such answers on his behalf.”

  Turning back to gaze at his knees, Tanis let some of the tension melt out of his shoulders, but he still felt on edge—not from Vincenzé’s prying so much as from some other discordant tone that seemed to have no source, only permeated every shadow and crevice of the room—of the entire university, now that he thought upon it.

  “What did you mean when you said the High Lord’s curiosity is more than justified?” Tanis had sensed something in the man’s thoughts upon that statement, some underlying truth not quite voiced.

  Vincenzé leaned back on his elbows again. “You know…the valley.”

  Tanis turned to look at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You told the High Lord you were born here, in Agasan, but he construed that you meant the valley where his ship made port.” Vincenzé arched a brow. “Did you not mean it so?”

  Tanis shrugged. He hadn’t meant to say it at all. “It’s true. I was born at the Palazzo di Adonnai.” No use denying it now.

  “Precisamente.” Vincenzé cast him a knowing look, cocking his head slightly sideways to emphasize his point. “It’s quite mysterious then, your being here. Capisci?”

  Tanis still didn’t understand him. “Why is that mysterious?”

  “Surely you’ve heard the stories of the Valley of Adonnai? Tales of that place are like ghost stories to children back home in Caladria. It’s legendary.”

  The statement had an ominous ring to it. Tanis had no idea what to make of this news. “What…do they say?”

  “Well, to be clear, most people don’t believe the valley exists, and as far as anyone outside of the imperial family is concerned, it doesn’t. Lots of stories claim that people go in search of the valley and never come back. Some say if you sail too close to its coastline, Wildling sirens will pull you onto the rocks. Others claim the valley appears and vanishes with the seasons. Most of the stories say something about magic, that you can only find it if you know where it is…that sort of nonsense.” He grinned. “You know how stories are, but some parts must be true, eh?”

  Tanis sort of stared at him. “Do the stories say anything about…about who owns the valley?”

  Vincenzé angled him a knowing look. “It doesn’t exist, remember?” Then he frowned. “But someone must own it, eh? Or once did, I suppose. Doubtless the High Lord would know if the lands were ever associated with a House or titles. As Adept bloodlines have died out over the centuries, so have their holdings often been lost. The empire has shrunk in more than just its Adept population.”

  Vincenzé sat forward and rested elbows on his knees. “And then there’s the zanthyr Phaedor,” he muttered, unheeding of Tanis’s dismay at all of this information, for the wielder was consumed now by his own thoughts. “I can’t tell you all the stories I’ve heard about that creature. Admittedly, most people wouldn’t know his name, but those within the Empress’s counsel, such as the High Lord, know it a mite too well.”

  “Phaedor is a force within the pattern,” Tanis said.

  Vincenzé looked at him sharply. Then he stared in silence long enough to make the lad uncomfortable. Finally he scratched his head. “You do know who that creature serves, don’t you?”

  Tanis understood quite well who Phaedor served, and he didn’t think Vincenzé knew the half of it. But he didn’t want to talk about the zanthyr, for in his over-sensitive state, it only made him sad.

  Fortunately, Giancarlo at that moment came skipping down the stairs, and Vincenzé looked up to address him. “Yeh cugino, che y’presa coso lungo?” What’s taking so long?

  “The Endoge is talking to the High Lord about the van Drexels.” Giancarlo threw himself into an armchair across from the long bench where Tanis and Vincenzé were sitting. “The family is claiming restitution from the Sormitáge and demanding that all of the maestros be truthread about Malin’s disappearance.”

  “Who is Malin?” Tanis asked.

  “He’s a Maritus truthreader,” Vincenzé muttered absently while frowning at his cousin.

  “What happened to him?” Tanis asked.

  Giancarlo turned his dark eyes to Tanis. “He went missing.”

  “The third Adept in a series of recent disappearances,” Vincenzé added. “His family claims he was kidnapped.”
>
  “As does his roommate, Felix di Sarcova. He says Malin was heavily involved in researching for his thesis and never would’ve left of his own volition. The family says the same.”

  “Was he kidnapped?” Tanis asked.

  Giancarlo shrugged. “Who can say? He vanished without a trace—no evidence, no ransom, nothing on the currents, just…nothing.”

  “See, that’s the real problem.” Vincenzé turned to Tanis. “Malin had his Maritus bracelet.”

  Tanis gave him a blank look.

  Giancarlo laughed. “Until you’ve gained your ring, truthreader, you’ll either be cuffed, braceleted or collared.”

  “Every collar, cuff and bracelet are fashioned of elae with multiple patterns ingrained within their metal. An Adept can’t leave the university grounds without triggering alerts in a variety of places.”

  “Not even on the nodes?” Tanis asked.

  Vincenzé shook his head. “The nodes into the Sormitáge are twisted, lad. You’d have to be at least a fourth-ring Nodefinder to have hope of unraveling them—Sancto Spirito, you’d practically need to be the Great Master himself.”

  “Not if the Nodefinder was born with a variant trait,” Tanis pointed out.

  Both of the men gave him a powerful look at this, and Tanis realized the idea hadn’t occurred to them.

  As if to assuage the unease Tanis’s remark had engendered, Vincenzé said, “Students with variant traits are required to register with the Office of Recondite Scholars.”

  While Giancarlo murmured, “Any working of that sort would surely have appeared on the currents. The High Lord would’ve seen something.”

  “Only if he was looking for it,” Tanis pointed out.

  “If not the High Lord then the Order,” Giancarlo returned, apparently unwilling to believe that an idea posed by a fifteen-year-old boy had not already been explored by his betters.

  To Tanis, news of missing Adepts seemed a grim herald. The lad had too much acquaintance with Adept kidnappings—Ascendants plucking them unwitting from their villages, Pelas abducting Healers for his own dark desires, and even Loghain, who claimed traitors in the First Lord’s name.

  Yet, Tanis didn’t think Malin’s disappearance was related to any of these causes, which indicated yet another predator on the prowl for members of an already dying race. Tanis alone of those in the room knew how a body might travel in a way that left no trace on the currents, but the names of those who might accomplish such an act comprised a short list.