As awareness fully returned to him, Tanis heard Pelas talking to one of the Fhorgs and was just grateful to no longer be the subject of the man’s grim attentions. The position he was in didn’t do much to alleviate the pain that throbbed through his body, but he dreaded doing anything to remind Pelas he was alive. Lying still then, Tanis took stock of his situation. His hands were bound again, although this time it seemed they’d used regular rope. His right eye was swollen shut, and his bottom lip had swelled to the size of a slug. His belly felt like someone had cut half of it out and left the other to sicken, and his entire right side was a dull throbbing ache.
Not bad for a day’s work, Tanis. Now what are you going to do?
For the life of him he couldn’t imagine what had driven him to follow this corrupted, vicious man. Yet, no sooner did the lad wonder about it than that same sense of duty flared, a beacon he could no more ignore than deny. It called to him, and Tanis was compelled to follow. Not that the sensation offered any moral support; nor did it provide any sense of conviction which he might’ve fallen back on when courage ran low. Instead, it was just relentlessly there, as merciless in its insistence as Pelas was in his malevolent ministrations.
“Get him up,” Pelas ordered, perhaps having noticed Tanis was awake.
Tanis braced himself as they hauled him to his feet, but still a whimper escaped his clenched teeth. He half expected the man to put him into the chains Camilla’s body had just vacated, and was only hoping that somehow the zanthyr might still find him in time, but Pelas didn’t seem of a mind to torture him—at least not right then.
He came up to Tanis and gazed down upon him with detached dispassion. “If you knew my nature, you knew what would befall you if you crossed me, yet you knowingly damaged my property.” Pelas eyed him curiously. “Have you no fear of death, boy?”
Tanis spoke as carefully as he could to keep from tearing open the wounds in his lip where his teeth had speared through. “I never…thought much about it,” he mumbled.
Pelas leaned close to peer at him, and Tanis noted—now that he was right next to the man—that his eyes were the color of molten copper. With his face just inches from Tanis’s, Pelas inquired, “Do you accept that death is your ultimate destination?”
Tanis thought it a really strange question. “Everybody d-dies eventually,” he said by way of agreement, though his swollen lips caused him to stumble a bit over the words. Too, he couldn’t seem to stop shaking, and this was also affecting his speech.
Pelas straightened. “Interesting.” He peered down at him again, a vulture assessing a bit of carrion, deciding whether or not it was worth the effort to gain it. “I think when I have completed my mission with the Healers I shall investigate the truthreaders.” He looked to the Fhorg beside him to note, “My brother Darshan has no monopoly upon them, after all. There are plenty to go around.”
Tanis was dismayed by this news.
“Well then,” Pelas said, looking back to him, “I suppose it is time to say our good-byes, young spy. I would’ve liked to know for whom you were spying, but I have more pressing business.”
“Like slaughtering Healers,” Tanis offered bitterly.
“Indeed,” he agreed. “Exactly that.” Settling copper eyes quietly on Tanis, Pelas licked his thumb and pressed it to Tanis’s forehead.
Tanis screwed up his eyes to watch the man’s thumb, wondering what this was all about. It seemed a crazy means of farewell.
“What’d ye do wrong?” one of the Fhorgs asked after a moment of silence wherein they’d all just stood there staring at him.
“Nothing!” Pelas sounded amazed. He grabbed Tanis by the neck and shoved his palm to the lad’s head, growling something in a strange language. Tanis never imagined he could get any colder, but when his teeth started chattering loud enough to echo in the empty room and his head starting hurting really bad, like after that one time he’d been swept off a rock into Mieryn Bay in the dead of winter and took far too long to swim back to shore, he realized how naïve he’d been to think he knew what it really felt like to be cold.
“It’s nae working,” the Fhorg Riod eventually pointed out with a sneer. “Is yer power deserting ye, Pelas?”
Pelas turned Riod a piercing look. Then he tore away from Tanis and slammed his palm into Riod’s chest. The Fhorg went sprawling ten paces through the air and landed roughly on his back, already convulsing. His head bashed repeatedly into the blood-soaked earth while a guttural moan escaped in ghastly cadence.
“It would seem my power is not the issue,” Pelas noted. “Regretfully, my brother will have to send a new spy.” He looked back to Tanis then, and there was both fury and intense curiosity in his gaze. “You are an anomaly.” He pushed a finger under Tanis’s fragile chin while he looked him over. “I do believe you should not exist.”
Tanis thought Pelas meant to say more, but something distracted him. He seemed to lose focus and for a long time looked for all the world to have completely vacated his body. Finally he blinked and released Tanis’s chin.
“Well, it seems my investigation of you will have to wait. Watch him,” he ordered his men. Then he turned in a swirl of his cloak and vanished into the deep darkness beyond their circle of torchlight.
The three remaining Fhorgs found seats on several upended crates and settled in to wait. After a while, Tanis tried asking a few questions of them, but when none of them answered, he gave up and sat down on the ground next to Camilla feeling heartsick and tormented and altogether rotten.
Yet in the back of his mind something connected. The Marquiin’s power hadn’t worked on him. Pelas’s power hadn’t worked on him. Therefore, it could be the same power.
But what power was it?
Three
“Nothing of this world could be worthy of trust.”
- The Prophet Bethamin
Kjieran van Stone locked the door of his room and then leaned against it cautiously, listening for footsteps, for motion, for anyone who might be interested in his activities. While Bethamin saw fit to keep some unsullied truthreaders around, those who’d been spared his Fire—like Kjieran—were considered in the lowest regard and were always looked upon with suspicion by the Prophet’s Ascendants. The Ascendants acted both as administrators and as the priests proselytizing Bethamin’s faith, but since they were not themselves Adepts, they were quick to distrust all who were. Many times, Kjieran had endured several hours of interrogation just because he’d looked an Ascendant in the eye, and their probing was never pleasant, even when the Marquiin weren’t involved.
So Kjieran was exceptionally careful when he prepared his reports to the Fourth Vestal. He did not like to envision what would happen to him if a Marquiin or one of the Ascendants discovered him spying, but he did know that under such a circumstance, death would be a mercy most certainly denied him.
There were many patterns that enabled communication across distances if one had the right medium, but any working of elae within the temple would bring the Prophet’s Marquiin swarming down on Kjieran. Having anticipated such a problem, the Fourth Vestal had set up an elaborate network of contacts to forward Kjieran’s communications out of the temple. They were all of them spies in the Brotherhood of the Seven Stones, professionals ready to die for their cause. Kjieran never came into contact with any of them, so he couldn’t be questioned about their identities, nor they about his. He could only trust that his reports were being found and forwarded on, that the information he was risking his life to smuggle out of the temple was reaching those who needed it.
Sitting down at his desk, Kjieran wrote everything he’d overheard that morning in a complicated double-strand helix code the Vestal had made him learn before leaving Dannym. Then he rolled the letter tightly and placed it inside the hollowed-out center of a pillar candle—one of the thousands in use around the temple. Kjieran spent his free evenings digging out the candles’ centers for this use, so he always had one ready. With the report safely coiled inside, Kjieran
settled the bottom plug of wax back inside the candle and then warmed the wax all the way around the circular base, covering any evidence of his tampering. Then he dropped the candle to dent the bottom edge.
Now it would have to be replaced, for the Prophet unfailingly remarked upon the least imperfection in his temple.
Kjieran took his candle and some other items he’d brought from the vestry to be swapped, cleaned or repaired and made his way out of his dormitory.
Epiphany’s grace had landed him the position of acolyte. He’d come in fully prepared—inasmuch as anyone could be prepared—to face Bethamin’s Fire. Raine had even crafted a talisman to aid him in overcoming the deleterious effects of the Fire—provided he survived the working to begin with—but Kjieran hadn’t needed to use it. The talisman remained sheltered in the false bottom of his trunk, protected by trace seals too minute to be noticed on the currents.
Kjieran believed it was divine intervention alone that had spared him the Prophet’s ‘purifying’ fire, but he also knew—as did anyone who’d survived more than a week in Bethamin’s temple—that no one was wholly safe from it. Kjieran had watched the Prophet enough to know that he was erratic in choosing his Marquiin. There were whispers, of course—from the other acolytes and the less discerning brothers—who believed that the Marquiin were chosen only after they’d displeased the Prophet during one of his midnight dalliances. Those ‘chosen few’ who were invited to the Prophet’s bedchambers in the dead of night were just as likely to be mortals as Adepts, however, so Kjieran suspected there was slightly more to the decision of who was ‘elevated’ to the rank of Marquiin.
He only prayed it would never be him.
This fear more than anything kept him awake at night and inundated his thoughts during every moment of his day. So Kjieran kept his nose to his duties and his eyes on his toes, and he never gave anyone a reason to doubt the veracity of his belief or his devotion to the Prophet—least of all the man himself.
Shuddering as he recalled the icy touch of the Prophet’s hand holding his chin, Kjieran turned a corner and came face to face with Dore Madden. He drew up short with a muttered apology and waited for the man to motion him on, but Dore merely stared at Kjieran with his two dark eyes like bright coals burning in an emaciated skull.
“Advisor Madden,” Kjieran finally greeted once it became clear that the man was neither willing to step aside nor let Kjieran move on. He shifted his assortment of items in his arms and asked, “Was there something you needed?”
“You overheard my conversation with the Prophet this morning, did you not, Acolyte?”
“I was there to attend the Prophet at his behest, Advisor,” Kjieran replied, appreciating Dore’s accusatory tone about as much as he liked the rest of the cadaverous man.
Dore licked his lips—thin, spindly lips spider-webbed with lines. “I asked about you,” he said, and his gaze flicked over Kjieran aggressively. “You hailed from Dannym.”
“I am Agasi, Advisor,” Kjieran corrected, “but I was assigned to the King’s court in Dannym for many years.”
“Gydryn val Lorian is a known heretic who defames the Prophet’s name and seeks to deny his people the benefit of our true faith. How then did you come to escape the kingdom?”
Kjieran gave him the line he’d practiced so many times with Raine it had become like as truth to him. He dropped his eyes in shame and confessed, “His majesty was…disappointed in my failure to identify the factions behind the deaths of his sons. I left his service in disgrace.”
“And how did you find your way to the Light of Bethamin?”
“An Ascendant found me in Tregarion where I was awaiting passage to Agasan. His words, his passion…enlightened me.” That much was true—Kjieran had only needed to wait a fortnight in Tregarion before he crossed paths with the Ascendant, who’d been eager to claim him in Bethamin’s name.
Dore eyed him surreptitiously. “I am told you are a devoted servant.”
“I am most honored to be in the Prophet’s service as acolyte,” Kjieran admitted, wishing the man would be about whatever business he had and be done with it. It was one thing to dissemble before the Prophet, who made it impossible not to cower at his feet, and another thing altogether to stand two paces from Dore Madden and hide the utter revulsion that throbbed in every fiber of his being.
“No doubt you look forward to being elevated to the rank of Marquiin one day.”
“As much as you must surely desire it, Advisor,” Kjieran returned.
Dore licked his lips. “Alas, I am no truthreader to gain such an exalted position.”
And aren’t you endlessly thankful for it! “What did you need, Advisor?” Kjieran said, anxiously hurrying the man along. “I am about the Prophet’s business and should not delay.”
Dore gave him a look of indignant annoyance. “You heard no doubt that the prince whose family you once served has done the unthinkable.”
“I know little of what transpired, Advisor.”
“I’ll tell you what transpired,” Dore said vehemently. “Ean val Lorian broke the bond between the Prophet and one of his Marquiin—a profanation of both our doomed brother and our exalted Prophet!”
“It is unbelievable,” Kjieran said, meaning it. He didn’t believe a word of Dore’s account. Kjieran hadn’t seen Ean since he was but a boy of thirteen, but had he any Adept talent, it would’ve presented by then.
“I would know anything you might tell me of the prince,” Dore said, finally getting to the point. His eyes bored into Kjieran as he licked his lips again. “You knew him as a child. You knew his family. Where would he go?”
Kjieran loathed giving Dore any information about the young prince, but he knew he would have to come up with something. “He is not in Calgaryn then?” he asked, stalling for time.
“After his treacherous misdeed, the heretic fled the kingdom. He was seen in Chalons-en-Les Trois but vanished before the hand of the Prophet’s justice could apprehend him.”
Kjieran frowned at the man. What to tell him when any information was likely too much?
“You seem reticent to speak, Acolyte. Have you some misplaced loyalty to this heathen recusant?”
“You mistake my silence, Advisor,” Kjieran replied, though it took an immense force of will to keep his expression neutral. “I am merely considering what information might be most helpful.” That I might better keep it from you.
“Has he any contacts outside of the kingdom?”
“His uncle Prince Ryan is Dannym’s Ambassador to Agasan,” Kjieran supplied, confident this known fact would be of little value. “His cousin Fynnlar val Lorian is a known renegade who deals with pirates. Last I knew Fynnlar had been apprehended by the Empress’s Imperial Navy and was being held for questioning.”
Dore looked less than pleased. “What else?” he snapped exasperatedly. “Surely you know more than this!”
Kjieran frowned and affected a thoughtful expression. “There is an heiress to which the prince is betrothed. He may have gone to her estates.”
Dore latched onto this avidly, licking his lips. “Where?”
“I was told she has holdings in M’Nador, Advisor. I do not know what part.”
Dore’s expression fell again. He frowned thunderously at Kjieran. “What about the man himself,” he said after a moment. “How might I recognize him?”
Kjieran had no way of double-talking his way out of that question. “The young prince is handsome, Advisor,” he reluctantly replied. “He would stand out in a crowd. He travels always with his blood-brother, Creighton Khelspath, son of Kristophe Khelspath of Agasan.” Kjieran shifted his bundles again and shot Dore an agonized look. “Please, Advisor, I really must continue on my duties.”
“Fine, fine,” Dore muttered, stepping aside to give Kjieran leave. “But I may have more questions for you later.”
“Anything I can do to be of service to the Prophet,” Kjieran replied as he headed quickly down the hall, not looking back.
Regaining his composure before someone saw him in such a state of anxiety and remarked upon it, Kjieran made his way to the repertory. Two scribes were just departing as he entered the massive storeroom, which was home to supplies and materials vast and varied, and he saw two Lesser Brothers talking further down an adjoining aisle.
Kjieran made his way first to the shelves where candles were stored and switched out his injured one for a pristine candle more befitting the Prophet’s temple. The damaged candle could still be used in the fellowship halls or the scriptorium, where the Prophet rarely ventured, so it was not unusual to leave a damaged one for others to use. Only Kjieran knew this candle would somehow find its way outside the temple. For the briefest of moments as he set it upon the lowest shelf in a particular spot behind the others, he desperately envied the candle its escape.
He never knew who was retrieving his candles, but by the time he’d finished his other errands in the repertory, he passed by the shelf and saw the candle had been taken. It gave him hope, however small, to see it gone.
It was too easy to lose sight of the world beyond Tambarré, too easy to fall prey to the Prophet’s seductive workings and lose oneself in the hypnotically repetitious pattern of temple life. Too easy to overlook the evil taking place all around you.
The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) Page 5