The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light)

by McPhail, Melissa

  He studied through the night, sitting without moving while the moon set and the stars fled the coming dawn. Soon the paling in the east became a glow, then a fire that burned in an orange-gold sky, flaming rose-hued clouds above a silver sea. And still he studied.

  The townspeople called him va dänstaty, which meant ‘the statue man’ in the Talieri dialect. They’d called him other things, too, over the centuries: warlock, sorcerer, necromancer. They didn’t know the difference between such words, or that in all his days, he would never have deigned even to acknowledge a necromancer’s dark delving. They knew only that he’d once orchestrated magical workings there upon his mountain, that he’d caused the earth itself to rise up into his current home, and that through all the generations, he never aged beyond his seeming fifty years.

  At the end of the Adept Wars, in the early days of his retreat from the world, the township had been frightened of him, worried that his immortality came from the vampiric demons of myth. Children had thrown rocks at him, and the village people shut their doors whenever he came to town. Those children had long since grown and lived and died, telling their stories to grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and he’d become a living legend.

  Once they’d feared him; now they tolerated him—still a mystery, but no longer a threat.

  He found none of this surprising. What did surprise him was how long he’d remained a subject of gossip and speculation. Had he made his home in the east, where few living wielders remained and magic was synonymous with myth, the people would long ago have forgotten him. Here, in an empire where the workings of elae were prevalent, even commonplace, where wielders walked the Imperial Court of the Sacred City with the status of nobility…here, people remembered his one long-ago working and feared it.

  Perhaps a people who know magic know also to respect it, he often reasoned.

  Perhaps. Or perhaps he merely gave the people of this remote village something to talk about. He didn’t begrudge them their intrigues; if nothing else, they ensured his solitude.

  Solitude indeed, Markal mused. There was nothing like studying events elsewhere in the realm to reinforce one’s own sense of isolation.

  He sighed and shifted his position. An annoying pebble had worked its way beneath his thigh, and he brushed it away before settling back to task. He’d learned all that he could from the first four strands. Time now to embark upon his most dreaded duty: the study of the fifth strand, the most ancient of elemental magics.

  The fifth’s golden flows had begun to carry upon them a taint heretofore unknown to elae’s currents. Even when Malachai’s Shades had hunted Alorin with genocidal blood on their blades, the fifth strand had not carried such a stain upon its tides.

  This evil was not unexpected—indeed, he’d been watching signs of it fomenting for the last three-hundred years. Yet his lack of surprise did nothing to quell his instinctual flinch each time he found evidence of it—evidence of their presence.

  Markal’s heart broke to think of the terrible ramifications of Malorin’athgul in Alorin. He wanted more than anything to track them down, to stop them with any means available, even should it mean his life. But the First Lord had given him a different role to play, one just as important, or so Björn assured him. Yet this role his conscience—his heart—would never have chosen.

  Order and method.

  These cornerstones kept him aligned with a vital purpose, long disguised within a web of apparent treachery. They kept him primed through all the centuries for his most crucial of tasks. Thus he studied the fifth strand, observing its golden flows with a heavy heart and a troubled soul.

  By midday, Markal had seen all he came to see. But as he began the weary process of focusing back on his surroundings, his elae-heightened senses perceived the near presence of another.

  Impossible! Here?

  The shocking discovery nearly shattered his rapport with elae, but he was Markal Morrelaine, a man who counted an unshakable composure as one of his most famous attributes.

  Markal released elae and turned to look behind him just as the man rounded a rise, climbing the narrow bluff with the ease Markal had always remembered of him. The man saw Markal looking and waved.

  Dagmar Ranneskjöld.

  Markal sat rooted to the earth, his pulse quickening. The Second Vestal looked exactly as Markal remembered, and yet…more than he remembered. Dagmar also seemed to possess a certain weariness of spirit, one that Markal too often saw revealed in his own reflection. Strange to observe it now in a man he remembered as having an inexhaustible eagerness for confrontation.

  All these thoughts passed in a single moment, the space of an indrawn breath, and then Markal was on his feet and waving in return. He bent to retrieve his polished rowan staff and walked with long strides to greet Alorin’s Second Vestal.

  They met near the edge of the high bluff, two tall silhouettes against the azure sky. Dagmar flashed his famous smile and opened his arms. “Markal, it has been a long time.”

  Markal grabbed the Second Vestal in a rough embrace. Incredible to find Dagmar here, in Alorin. “What of Raine?” He pulled back to take Dagmar’s shoulders with both hands. “He will see you on the currents.”

  “Raine is otherwise engaged.” Dagmar winked one pale-green eye. “Besides, have a little faith, my old friend. Might not the First Lord have taught me some few things in our long years together?”

  Markal noted the dry humor in his tone, but his attention shifted more to the Vestal’s oathring as it caught the sunlight, the jewel sparkling with blue fire. There was something ominous about seeing the ring and knowing what it meant that Dagmar wore it still, even as Björn no doubt did. Moreover, that the stone’s color remained as true as the day of its forging.

  He suddenly felt again the urgency they’d all shared during those last days of the Adept Wars. The frustration, the ineptitude, the guilt—the emotions welled up to claim him in one fierce moment, unprepared as he was for their return. He relived them now, prompted by the mere sight of a square blue stone set in a heavy silver band worn upon a man’s middle finger.

  Perceptive to Markal’s state of mind, Dagmar placed a hand on his shoulder and captured his gaze with his own. “What is it? What burdens you?”

  Markal shook his head. “Seeing your ring, remembering the time before, I wonder…” He gave Dagmar a troubled look. “I wonder if I am the man I once was. If I am still the right man for the task assigned me. It has been three centuries since I commanded the lifeforce beyond a whisper.”

  Dagmar laughed. “What’s this? The great Markal Morrelaine doubting his ability? By Cephrael’s Great Book, I never thought I’d see the day!”

  Markal frowned at him.

  Dagmar just chuckled, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and said with a twinkle in his eye, “Come now, don’t begrudge my moment of gloating. Surely you remember how insufferable you were.”

  Markal grunted. “Humility has a way of creeping in unannounced.”

  They started off together, walking the stony path toward Markal’s villa.

  “It’s amazing to be back in Alorin,” Dagmar confessed after a moment. “Björn said it would be marvelous, that I would want to hold elae until I couldn’t breathe, until I exhausted myself trying to contain it…until it consumed me.” He glanced Markal’s way, catching his gaze. “The lifeforce flows in T’khendar, but it never feels the same. To be so long away from Alorin…” His cheery smile faded. “It was difficult.”

  They strolled away from the cliffs, trading the open vista of blue waters and sky for Markal’s orchard of olive and pear trees, the latter bare save for a few brown remnants, fodder for the east wind. Once they passed beyond the bluff, the wind died to a gentle breeze, as it always did, and other sounds returned: the distant brays of sheep and goats, the myriad chirping of birds, a quiet rustling of tiny animals in the underbrush. Dagmar grew quiet, as if relishing the harmony of nature.

  Markal, however, was brimming with questions. Yet as th
ey headed down a stony path bordered with long, silver-green grass, only one question mattered. “How long do we have?”

  A gusting breeze sent a cascade of golden-brown leaves sweeping across their path, and Dagmar caught a leaf as it fluttered down. He gazed at it pinned against his palm. “Events progress quickly.” He glanced Markal’s way as he closed the leaf in his fist. “We are pebbles of warning, you and I, announcing the avalanche that follows.”

  “And Björn…?” He let the thought trail off, not really wanting to voice such questions.

  “You wonder if time has changed him?” Dagmar filled in the rest anyway, arching a flaxen brow. “Changed him, perhaps, as it changed Malachai?”

  Markal looked away, shamed by his own doubts.

  “Fret thee not.” Dagmar could not have been more confident, nor his gaze more genuine. “Björn solved the mystery of deyjiin. It can be worked safely now by a select few, when due precaution is taken. And my oath-brother, your mentor…he is as immutable as the fifth itself. But come, there is so much to tell you. Much has changed in T’khendar since Malachai’s day, and many we thought lost were spared in the end. So let us enjoy what time is given us here. At dawn we must depart, for you are needed in T’khendar.”

  Markal spun him a concerned look. “So soon?”

  With sober acceptance in his green eyes, Dagmar nodded. Then he flashed that famous smile and grabbed Markal around the shoulders again. “But that’s tomorrow, eh? For tonight, let’s you and I make a cavernous dent in your wine cellar!”

  Markal could only smile and nod acquiescence, for in his heart, he had accepted the truth, and it was precisely as he’d feared.

  Tomorrow was no longer his own.

  Part One

  One

  “Nobility is birthed not of blood but of the heart.”

  - Gydryn val Lorian, King of Dannym

  The temple of the Prophet Bethamin in Tambarré was built upon the ruins of a much older structure, one that first belonged to the ancient, and ultimately corrupt, Quorum of the Sixth Truth. For two long millennia, the massive complex stood crumbling atop its lonely mountain, a stark reminder of the Adept race’s darkest days. During all the intervening years, none had seen fit to approach it, much less build something new from its ashes.

  But time thins the cloth of memory. As the ages pass, its rich colors fade. Strong wool is beaten by the elements until the pattern of its lesson disintegrates, leaving holes in the truths it was meant to carry on. Even the stains of blood blend and bleed, leaving but faded blotches without meaning, mere shadows of lessons that came before, their warnings lost within the obscure impression that remains.

  As the strong Saldarian sun dove westward, the Agasi truthreader Kjieran van Stone stood upon the newly rebuilt walls of the Prophet’s temple, staring north. The wind blew his shoulder-length black hair into his eyes, so he held up a hand to hold it back that it might not distract him from the view. In the distance, the upper crescent of the Dhahari mountain range merged with the Iverness range of southeastern Dannym to form jutting, snowcapped peaks as impassible as they were forbidding. Only the Pass of Dharoym permitted travel between Dannym and Saldaria, and it was guarded day and night by hardened men sworn to the Duke of Morwyk.

  Kjieran missed Dannym. He missed its green hills and misty grey mornings, its forbidding forests and charcoal seas. He missed the heavy snows of winter, and the north wind that scoured the land; and he missed the people—especially his king. In his years of service to Gydryn val Lorian, the monarch had become like a father to him, and his sons like the brothers Kjieran never had. In many ways, he missed Dannym more than his homeland of Agasan.

  Though to be fair, he would’ve just as willingly served ten years before the mast on an Avataren slaver than spend even one more night in Tambarré.

  At the behest of his king and the Fourth Vestal Raine D’Lacourte, Kjieran had been truth-bound to secrecy and sent to serve the Prophet as a spy for the north. He was afraid to do it—he’d nearly wept the night Raine truth-bound him—but they had no one better suited to go in his stead, and their need was dire.

  The Fourth Vestal believed—they all believed—that the plot to end the val Lorian reign encompassed more than a single throne, and had not the king and queen already sacrificed enough with the loss of two of their sons? Kjieran could hardly refuse them, though he suspected that Tambarré would be his doom.

  Little did he realize then that there were so many shades of grey within the spectrum of imminent death…that when a man might pluck any variety of poisoned fruit from the Tree of Dying and suffer the ending through myriad torments—drawing it out for months, even years—that death itself might become a mercy.

  But he understood that much better now.

  Kjieran had served the Prophet for six moons, and every day of it had been a waking horror. Every day he reminded himself of his vital purpose, of their desperate need—not just Dannym’s, but all of Alorin. For without this hope to ground him, to shore up his fortitude and replenish his courage, he knew he would long ago have fled. Instead, each night he warded his dreams before laying down his head, loath to close his eyes for fear of the visions that lurked beyond his sight. But despite his best efforts, when dawn broke each morning, he still woke with a stifled scream.

  They all did, the occupants of Tambarré—that is, those who slept at all.

  At the sound of a voice raised in anger, Kjieran turned from his wistful study of the mountains. The conversation floated to him on the stagnant air that came seeping out of the temple hall, where large copper braziers glowed day and night. The Ascendants burned incense on those coals, and the oily smoke stained the walls and filled the air with a foul, fetid haze. When he heard the Prophet’s voice, however, Kjieran hurried inside, for Bethamin misliked when his acolytes were not close to hand.

  “Those patterns are bound with the fifth strand,” the Prophet was saying in a tone of cold censure as Kjieran crept soundlessly through the vestry. “My hold upon a Marquiin should’ve been impossible to break—unless you’ve been misleading me, Dore.”

  “My lord, I wouldn’t dream of misleading you,” came the sycophantic voice of Dore Madden, an Adept wielder and advisor to the Prophet. Kjieran stifled a shudder as he drew up just short of the temple nave. Dore Madden made his skin crawl, and he would just as soon not have the man know he was there.

  He inched his head around the archway to see Dore and the Prophet standing about ten paces away. Dore Madden’s cadaverous frame stood in profile to Kjieran, facing the Prophet as he continued, “The fifth strand acts as the sand in concrete, my lord. Any time one layers patterns of differing strands, they must be bound with the fifth if they are to endure. And like sand into the concrete mix, once bound, they cannot be separated.”

  “Then you tell me how it was done!” the Prophet hissed. Kjieran had never seen him so infuriated. Usually Bethamin was all cold dispassion no matter the horrific deeds happening in his name…or in his midst. Bethamin turned away from Dore and stood with hands clasped behind his back, his stance conveying his ultimate displeasure.

  The Prophet was a tall man and broad of shoulder. He wore his long black hair in hundreds of braids, each strand bound four times with tiny gold bands, the mass contained by more elaborate braids encircling the whole and again bound in gold. Bare-chested, he wore a tunic of white linen and loose desert pants, and the gold torc around his neck always stood out brightly against his caramel skin. He was imposing. He was coldly arrogant. And he was terrifying.

  “My lord, there is no way for me to know how it was done without inspecting the Marquiin who died or interrogating the perpetrator,” Dore said in a soothingly obsequious tone. He smoothed his white hair back from his wide forehead and licked his lips, which he had a habit of doing. Kjieran thought the man just one generation removed from the foulest of desert lizards. “You heard the testimony of your Ascendant as well as I, my lord,” Dore continued. “He saw this northern prince sully your Marq
uiin right before his own eyes, resulting in the untimely death of one of your most loyal servants. ‘Tis surely the divine grace that is upon you, my lord, that your Ascendant found his way back to us with the terrible news. We must send someone in search of this treacherous wielder who thinks himself above you and seeks to undo your great work. Such a man could cause all manner of mischief while sullying the purity of your name, my lord.”

  The Prophet turned Dore a piercing look over his shoulder.

  “But more importantly,” Dore continued, leaning toward the Prophet with a wild look in his reptilian gaze and dropping his voice to note, “this happenstance surely proves the validity of my concerns, my lord. We need stronger stock to carry your sigil.” This issue was a bone of contention between Dore and the Prophet—Kjieran had overheard the argument many times. The Prophet turned away again, but Dore continued as his voice rose in pitch, “Wielders and men of the fifth are better suited to your Fire than these feeble fourth-stranders, my lord. Your power is too strong for them as are inborn of frail innocence. Only those born of the fifth might withstand the Fire’s brilliance. They would become beacons for its radiance, my lord! A far more fitting receptacle than a truthreader’s fragile shell.”

  “This is not the first time you’ve expressed this sentiment, Dore Madden,” the Prophet observed uninterestedly. “The problem is the resources available.”

  “Yes, but I may have solved that problem, my lord.”

  Kjieran could tell from the dreadful eagerness in Dore’s tone that the man had been waiting for just the right moment to reveal this new information. Kjieran loathed Dore Madden. Dore was the one who’d taught the Prophet what patterns could be twisted and snarled, perverted or adapted to host the power of his Fire. Every day the wielder brought Bethamin new patterns to try, having first tested them on the dungeons of doomed souls he kept as experimental rats scattered about Saldaria, many of them inexorably bound to him with the fifth.