Devangshu grunted. “If what Niko says about Björn is true, nowhere is safe for any of us.”
“Niko has been known to exaggerate.”
They alluded, of course, to the most pressing concern on any Companion’s mind—that of being Called. The task Björn assigned each of them individually on that ill-fated night was a secret never to be shared, so it was impossible to know who, if anyone, had done as the Vestal bade them. All that was known was that Björn had returned to call in his debts, and his price for disobedience was the life he’d spared so long ago—one taken in claim most often by a deadly Whisper Lord.
Franco had accepted his Calling. He’d long been resigned to the understanding that his treason might never be repaid—nor the First Lord’s mercy. He’d crossed paths in recent weeks with a few Companions who were also about the First Lord’s business, but otherwise there was no way of knowing who among their number had been Called, save the ones who turned up slashed to pulp.
“Well...Dore’s back from Avatar, and we’re none the better for it,” Devangshu meanwhile muttered. It seemed even Dore Madden paled in comparison to the fears inherent of Björn van Gelderan and his Calling—which was only fitting in Franco’s estimation.
Devangshu turned to gaze back out at the distant storm. The clouds were broadening and had embraced most of the horizon, now a dark sheet sporadically backlit with lightning flares. “Dore Madden,” he repeated disdainfully, shaking his head. “Would that in three centuries someone had the fortitude to end the man’s life and spare us all his odious scheming. But no one does.” He turned Franco a heated look, his dark brown eyes sharp with criticism. “No one does—and do you know why? For fear that he might still claim their souls from the afterlife.” He gestured with his wine as he added, “It’s certain that if there was a way to accomplish so despicable a deed, Dore Madden would be the one to discover it.”
“An astute observation,” Franco replied soberly, wishing it was only jest and not completely true.
Franco felt that Niko carried much of the blame—he’d been the one that pushed them to hide in the catacombs, where Björn eventually found them, rather than turning themselves in and begging for mercy—but that was only after Dore’s even more lunatic plan to assault the Hundred Mages had miserably failed.
Franco wondered how much he could trust Devangshu. It would be helpful to have an ally. “Devangshu…” he began, but whatever else he might’ve said was preempted just then by the arrival of their host.
“Ah, the inimitable Franco Rohre, minstrel and bard, Nodefinder extraordinaire!”
Swallowing a grimace, Franco turned to acknowledge his host. “Niko.”
He had not changed in all these years—clearly he’d been vigilant at working the Pattern of Life, which all of them had been forced to work the first time while kneeling at Björn’s feet.
Blonde and blue-eyed, square-jawed and broad-shouldered, Niko was the consummate embodiment of nobility in form and the vilest low-city scoundrel in deed. They’d been good friends once, back when they were still in university together at Agasan’s famous Sormitáge. Franco had even looked up to Niko—who’d always boasted enormous popularity despite his lesser talent—but that was before Franco learned that the handsome façade hid such an unscrupulous core.
“How pleased I am to find you’ve accepted my invitation for the weekend, Franco,” Niko said. His blue-eyed gaze shifted to the other Nodefinder then. “And Devangshu Vita. Your venerated presence doubly honors my halls.”
“Of course it does,” Devangshu remarked.
Niko smiled that cultured, humorless smile that was so polite and yet so insulting at the same time. “Do make yourself at home, Vita. I won’t be but a moment with Rohre here, and then it is my hope we may all share a bountiful meal and become happily reacquainted. Come, Franco?”
Franco cast an inquiring look at Devangshu, but the latter only nodded farewell and turned his back on their host.
Franco fell into step with Niko as they walked through the wide halls of his mansion. “You seem to have done well for yourself,” Franco observed, taking in the buttressed hallways decorated with myriad statues, tapestries and works of art.
“I have become a collector of sorts,” Niko returned amiably. “Nothing so notable as the Sormitáge’s Primär Insamling or Veneisea’s Musée d’art historitée, yet my humble collection has garnered the notice of many like-minded souls. My home has become a melting pot where artists and their philanthropic patrons can meet. Most recently I entertained the Empress of Agasan’s cousin and his retinue.”
Franco understood this rhetoric as Niko’s way of insinuating that he was powerful and politically well-connected—or at least he wanted Franco to believe he was, which at the moment was the more salient point.
“And what of your craft?” Franco inquired. “Traveled anywhere notable lately?’
Nowhere as notable as you, sneered the mad voice of his conscience.
Niko’s eyes veritably glowed. “Oh, I’ve done my share of exploring, weld-hopping and such—haven’t we all? No doubt we could both exchange stories of the distant realms now within our reach.” He took Franco by the shoulder as he joked, “I’ll bet we could reconstruct half a weldmap just between the two of us! And of course, I’ve assisted the Alorin Seat on numerous occasions when she’s had need of a Nodefinder,” Niko added, so self-absorbed that he missed completely Franco’s revulsion at his touch, despite it flowing off him in waves. “I’ve made more than a notable number of visits to Illume Belliel on her behalf.”
Franco was not heartened by this news. Niko gaining the acquaintanceship of Alshiba Torinin meant he’d set his sights on bigger games than the politics of kings. Franco managed to maneuver out of Niko’s reach and kept his expression benign as he replied, “It is indeed an honor to be granted access to the cityworld.”
Niko did not hide his disappointment well. “Oh…you’ve been there also?”
Franco knew he had to flatter the man, though it galled him to play to that particular vice. He gave a self-deprecating smile and replied, “On rare occasion.”
“Then you also have made the fair acquaintance of the Alorin Seat?”
Franco felt himself far too closely acquainted with every Vestal, but he merely replied with a modest smile, “Only through association with others.”
They continued small talk while they walked, with Franco skirting the precarious line of appealing to Niko’s vanity without divulging anything about his own activities and contacts.
Two men awaited them as they arrived in a long gallery overlooking a line of forbidding mountains. Upon seeing Dore Madden, Franco realized with no little asperity that here stood a man whose acquaintance he regretted making more even than Björn van Gelderan’s.
Dore had never been a hale figure, but the intervening years had hollowed the man until he looked positively corpselike. His deep-set eyes seemed even more shadowed and were now little more than dark pools beneath black brows, giving his countenance a certain ferocity. His skin had grown tan during his years in Avatar, with deep, hard lines etched around his eyes and thin, spiteful ones spider-webbing his mouth. Rail-thin and with hair white as the desert sand, he looked nearly his considerable age, though he held his shoulders incongruously straight.
“Ah, Franco Rohre,” Dore noted with too much satisfaction for Franco’s comfort—the man taking note of him at all was disturbing enough. “We gain the attention of a big fish in the little pond that is our modest Guild.”
“Dore,” Franco said by way of greeting. His gaze strayed to the man standing beside Dore, a black-clad, cold-eyed stranger with a notable scar across his cheek. Scar or no, he might have still been handsome had he not radiated such ill-humor.
Niko placed a hand on Franco’s shoulder, drawing his attention back. “Come, sit and have wine with us while we talk, Franco.”
Franco had to physically restrain himself from grabbing Niko’s hand off his shoulder and twisting it in a mane
uver that would’ve had the man on the floor in seconds. Instead, he forced a shallow smile and replied, “Certainly, Niko, that would be welcome.”
The four of them moved toward a grouping of armchairs overlooking a balcony and the encroaching storm. It was there, as Niko was handing him a goblet of wine, that Franco noticed the scent of magic in the room.
It isn’t that elae can actually be smelled; rather, the awareness of the lifeforce is its own perception—no different from taste or touch—that must be honed like any other sense. Franco’s recent travels with the Fourth Vestal had brought him repeatedly into contact with the fourth strand of elae in use, and he knew it unmistakably now. Someone was wielding the fourth.
A quick glance around as the others were taking their seats confirmed that the man in black was the one working the fourth strand. The fact that no one had introduced the man reinforced this conclusion. A quick leap landed Franco on the motive of this gathering.
The working of fourth-strand patterns to discover the truth of a man’s words came naturally to a truthreader, but as was the case for most Adept patterns intrinsic to the various strands, these same patterns were unwieldy and difficult to master by one not born of that strand. The complexity of wielding fourth-strand truth patterns by someone other than a truthreader made the patterns untrustworthy, and it was the basest sort of individual who hired a wielder to pattern the fourth instead of hiring a truthreader for the same purpose.
But Franco understood immediately why a truthreader would be unwelcome in this gathering: a truthreader in the room meant everyone’s thoughts were potentially open to display, while a wielder might settle his truth pattern on but one individual. It went without saying that Niko and Dore had agendas they didn’t wish known even to each other, much less to an Adept truthreader. To this end, having a wielder there to work the fourth made perfect sense, loathsome though it might be.
“Now, Franco,” Dore began, sitting with his spindly fingers clasping the arms of his chair like lion claws gripping the balls of a claw-foot tub, “we hear great things about you.”
Franco shifted his gaze to the man somewhat unwillingly. “That seems unlikely.”
“No, indeed,” Dore insisted. “It has come to our attention that you were recently in the employ of the Fourth Vestal—an honor, no doubt, for one such as yourself.”
Franco knew what Dore insinuated, a reminder that his noble family line had fallen from grace. It might’ve rankled once, but Franco had long progressed past such vanities. He was far more concerned about the man in black’s cold-eyed gaze upon him, which he could feel as surely as the flow of the fourth. But Franco had been well skilled in compartmenting his thoughts many years before he came into close association with Raine D’Lacourte, and his months with the Vestal had subsequently honed this skill to a razor point.
Franco naturally detested any wielder who would work forth-strand truth patterns—knowing their inherent fallibility—and it both infuriated and disgusted him that this stranger would wield such patterns upon him. He was loath to allow the man to garner even the least impression of his true thoughts, but he knew to affect this end he would have to drive the man forcefully and quickly from the room.
So Franco, being only recently recovered from a near-fatal use of his own talent and thereby lacking a certain measure of decorum, conceived of decidedly vile imagery matching, he felt, his level of disgust toward the nameless—if vaguely familiar-looking—wielder.
While still holding Dore’s gaze, Franco filled his head with lustful thoughts of Niko. The idea was so abhorrent to him that he felt certain he could easily transfer this intensity of feeling to the wielder who sought to know his mind. Knowing, too, just how ‘loudly’ he needed to think of these images in order to broadcast them to the wielder through the fourth-strand patterns he was working, Franco cast the images his way and was rewarded by sight of the man stiffening in his chair.
“Yes,” Franco answered Dore while suppressing a potent grin that nearly made up for the disgust he felt himself. “I was asked to serve the Vestal in a matter of some importance.”
“Might you tell us of this?” Niko inquired.
Franco turned to Niko and affected a regretful expression as he confessed, “If only I could.” Let them decide what to make of that.
From Niko’s look of understanding, the man had interpreted Franco’s reply as he’d intended. “I see, of course. It is only natural that Raine D’Lacourte would truth-bind you. Is there anything you can tell us?”
Franco set down his wine untouched. “Why are you so interested in the Fourth Vestal’s activities, Niko?”
“We heard he was in search of Björn van Gelderan,” Dore answered. As Franco turned the wielder an unreadable look, Dore added, “Surely you are as eager as we are to know Björn’s whereabouts.”
“From what I hear, it’s not Björn coming after all of us to call in his debt,” Franco snapped, his composure momentarily lost at facing this man after so long and so much. Dore alone among the Companions had not fled to the catacombs. They’d all been sure he’d perished at the Citadel, yet somehow he’d escaped both the battle and Björn’s justice. A galling irony.
“Be that as it may,” Niko said evenly, “the more information we have, the better prepared we shall be.”
Franco didn’t think there would be much Niko could do to prepare for a Shade appearing at his bedside, but he said only, “We didn’t find him, so there’s not much I can offer.” He felt the strength of the fourth-strand patterns leveled upon him intensifying, which only made him angry, so he fought back with images of Niko performing fellatio upon the man in black. This brought a grunt of disgust from the wielder, which in turn drew Dore’s eye to the man in annoyance.
“A few more questions, if you might indulge us, Franco,” Niko proposed, ignorant of the depraved visions Franco was presenting on his behalf, “before we get to the point of our meeting.”
“Certainly, Niko,” Franco said as unctuously as he could manage while upping the intensity of Niko’s imagined pleasure at his work upon the stranger in black. The wielder squirmed in his chair.
Irritated ostensibly at the wielder writhing beside him like a man with imminent diarrhea, Dore said brusquely, “We hear that lately you’ve made the intimate acquaintance of the Fire Princess Ysolde Remalkhen.”
Franco couldn’t help but be impressed by the extent of their information. Niko has spies deep in Calgaryn to know that. “Just so,” Franco admitted, for there was no point in denying it—and it certainly helped confirm the libertine image of himself which he hoped to uphold.
“Did you then also encounter the crown prince upon his recent return?”
And what interest could you possibly have in Ean val Lorian, Dore?
Franco did not like this unexpected turn of questioning, which brought him too close for comfort to his own recent activities on the First Lord’s behalf.
It took incredible force of will, but he did what he must. He forced himself to imagine the most despicable visions of Niko he could stomach. It took more fortitude than he imagined to refrain from shuddering as he mentally shouted the scene.
The wielder shuddered on his behalf, drawing a hostile glare from Dore.
Franco deemed the wielder too distracted now to be of much use to Dore, so he answered with careful duality, “I did cross paths with the young prince.”
Dore brightened—that is, if the malicious intensity boiling within his gaze could be considered such. “What do you know of him? This Prince Ean?”
“Very little,” Franco lied, eying the wielder surreptitiously to be certain he noted nothing untoward in the comment. “Only that the prince seemed aggrieved by his mother’s attempted assassination on the afternoon of his return.” He added as an afterthought—to help perpetuate the lie, “And there seemed to be some trouble with an heiress? I really can’t recall.”
Dore’s manic expression fell into obvious frustration. “Did the Fire Princess mention nothin
g of the prince to you? She did not share in his plans perhaps?”
“Conversation was not the focus of our evenings, Dore,” Franco replied while at the same time imagining the man in black kneeling now before Niko’s bare form—
The wielder stifled a groan and launched abruptly out of his chair. He sped from the room looking unwell.
Franco felt immensely gratified.
While Dore stared after the man in bewilderment, Franco asked, “Why the interest in the prince, Niko?”
Niko waved a hand absently. “It’s Dore who garners some fascination with the boy.” He added brusquely, “Dore?”
The man tore his gaze from the retreating wielder and fastened it instead on Franco. He stared at him blankly for a moment, during which time Franco honestly wondered if the man had mentally vacated to another realm, and then at last remarked, “The Prophet has his eye on the val Lorian prince.”
Franco stilled. “The Prophet?” He schooled his voice to indifference, but inside he was screaming. “The Prophet is…a patron of yours, Dore?” he managed.
“I have long been Advisor to the Prophet Bethamin, even before he moved his temple from Myacene to Tambarré.”
Franco went cold. By Cephrael’s Great Book, that would be more than three decades! It was horrific news.
Dore said grimly, “The Prophet is most displeased that a certain prince has been lately killing his Marquiin.”
It took a moment for Franco to understand his intimation. “You mean…you speak of Prince Ean?”
“The Prophet has reason to suspect him, yes. Good reason.” He turned his gaze to the black-robed wielder, who stood outside on the balcony in the rain, and frowned again.
This was disheartening information to say the least. After everything Ean had already been through… Franco decided he’d best steer the conversation away from the prince before his true thoughts betrayed him—with or without the nameless wielder there to work the fourth. “What work do you do for Bethamin, Dore?” he inquired, letting his tone betray his unease. “Is that what this meeting is about?”
The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) Page 9