“Ah, good,” he said, remarking upon Tanis’s improved condition. “Is the coat to your liking?”
Tanis dropped his eyes to his hands. “It is very fine, sir. Thank you.”
“Of course, it is your due. You cannot be seen with me dressed in bloodied rags. What will people think?”
Tanis couldn’t tell if Pelas was teasing him or not, but he sensed a dry humor in the man’s tone.
“Are you ready, little spy?”
Tanis bent and put on his boots, taking care with the one that still concealed his dagger. “Ready for what, sir?”
“For the day ahead.”
“I don’t know,” Tanis answered uneasily. “That depends.”
Pelas gave him a curious half smile. “On what?”
Tanis straightened and regarded him fretfully. “On whether or not you’re planning to torture and kill anyone today.”
Pelas considered him with his coppery eyes. “You really are an interesting little bird, aren’t you? I would love to know what my brother would think of you, save that it would be entirely too dangerous for you to meet him.”
Tanis caught something of his thoughts in this statement and braved the question, “For me, sir, or for you?”
Pelas gave him a wondering look. “For both of us, I believe. You really can read my mind,” he added appreciatively then. “How interesting that none of the Marquiin have ever managed it.”
“Their talent has been corrupted by Bethamin’s Fire,” Tanis said without thinking, only remembering his foray into Piper’s thoughts and what he’d perceived from the Marquiin who’d died in his arms back in Acacia.
The sudden fury in Pelas’s gaze made Tanis take a reflexive step backwards. “What do you know of the Marquiin?” he hissed.
Tanis felt trapped beneath his gaze. Noting the dangerous shift in the man’s temperament, Tanis hurried to explain, “It’s not what you’re thinking, sir.” He knew how Pelas loathed his brother Darshan’s intervention in his activities and suspected everyone of being Darshan’s spy. “When our company was traveling through Acacia on our way to the Cairs,” Tanis confessed, stumbling slightly in his haste to form the words, “my lady and I were taken hostage and handed over to an Ascendant. I was supposed to be tested, only…”
“Only it didn’t work?” Pelas concluded, his manner thankfully softening.
“Yes, sir. The Ascendant was furious and he and the Marquiin started fighting.”
Pelas was fascinated now. He threw himself down into a near armchair and extended long legs before him. “Tell me, how did you escape them?”
“Prince—” Tanis immediately regretted his loose tongue, but it was out there now. Wincing, Tanis finished, “Prince Ean showed up and rescued us.”
“Prince Ean…” Pelas mused, “and which one would he be? There are so many princes in this realm.”
“He’s the Prince of Dannym,” Tanis told him, fretful that Pelas would know something of the name, but he seemed entirely unimpressed by it.
“But this does not explain how you know what my brother does to create the Marquiin, young spy.”
“I’ll tell you what I know sir, of course I will, but…it’s just…”
Pelas gave him a tolerant look. “But?”
“Well, I do have a name,” he grumbled.
Pelas grinned at him. “Do you?”
“Yes. It’s Tanis.”
“But I rather like the epithet I gave you. It seems entirely too fitting to discard it for something so trite as a name anyone might know.”
Tanis sighed. “Yes, sir.”
“Come then.” Pelas launched himself out of the chair and headed off. “You can tell me of your deep knowledge of the Marquiin over breakfast.”
Tanis caught up with him in the hall. Pelas was tall and long-legged, and he was as difficult to keep up with as Rhys or the zanthyr. As Tanis hurried along beside him, he noted that Pelas wore an aubergine coat of the same cut and cloth as Tanis’s own. Clearly they were both headed somewhere important that day.
“I tire of the storm,” Pelas remarked as they descended the manor’s grand staircase. “Let us break our fast somewhere that has seen the sun at some point this century.”
With that, he took Tanis’s upper arm and tugged him to stop. Tanis watched him concentrate upon a distant point in the room, and then he saw a silver line spear down through the air. The line broadened to reveal a glossy blackness, but Tanis didn’t have time even to formulate a fearful thought before they were into it and the darkness enveloped him completely. If not for Pelas’s firm hold upon his arm, Tanis would’ve thought himself lost out of time.
A heartbeat later, another line split down out of the nothingness, and Pelas ushered him out into an alley. A slim band of blue sky showed overhead as Pelas guided him between tall buildings and out onto a wide cobblestone street. It was still early morning wherever they were. Merchants were just setting up their carts or opening stores. All around him Tanis heard a strange language. He wasn’t familiar enough with languages to know for certain which one it was, though it might’ve been Agasi.
Pelas drew in a deep breath and sighed happily. “Much improved. Come, little spy, I know a place that makes excellent meat pies, and their wine is unmatched.”
“Where are we, sir?” Tanis asked as he walked at Pelas’s side down the increasingly busy street.
Pelas turned to him with a smile, and Tanis realized that he was actually nice-looking—handsome even, in a darkly exotic way. His copper eyes could seem quite mysterious and intriguing when they weren’t harboring maniacal intentions. “The Solvayre,” Pelas told him. “You’ve heard of the region, no doubt?”
“Yes, but…” he frowned, confused. “You didn’t travel upon a node just then.”
Pelas arched a sly brow and cast him a sideways look. “Do I seem a Nodefinder to you?”
“No,” Tanis muttered. It was not a heartening thought to know Malorin’athgul could skip around the realm at will. How were they traveling if not on the nodes? What was that black place? “If not the nodes, sir, then how?”
“Now, now, little spy,” Pelas said, shooting him a grin, “you have only just gained my good graces. That is far too soon to be asking such important questions. You haven’t earned those answers by any stretch.”
Well, it had been worth a try.
They broke their fast at a winery’s café. The patio overlooked the vineyard, which spread in tailored rows across the near rolling hills. “Sir,” Tanis said when they were done with their meal and enjoying the vineyard’s rich wine beneath a strong winter sun, “if you can travel anywhere without the nodes, why not just bring us right to this café?”
Pelas was sitting with his long legs extended to the side of their table and looking out over the rows of potted flowers toward the hills and a long line of cypress trees. His long nose, which was slightly rounded like the Bemothi nobility, accentuated his almond-shaped eyes and elegant brow. Tanis was so confused by his manner, which was so…likeable now, so incongruous with the version of the man he’d first met.
“Perhaps I appreciate the walk,” Pelas replied, casting him a sideways glance. “Did you never think of that?”
“No,” Tanis grumbled. “It seemed too benign.”
Pelas chucked. “There are things to be observed in this world, little spy,” he said. “I told you that. I’m in no hurry to destroy it.”
“You seemed awfully hurried the other night,” Tanis pointed out, feeling unexpectedly resentful of Pelas’s callous and disconnected view.
Pelas turned to look straight at him, and something shifted in his gaze. It was like a lamp suddenly coming to light—or in this case, being instantly extinguished, replaced by a crushing darkness. The feeling of menace that overcame Pelas’s thoughts made the hairs rise on Tanis’s arms, and the boy was suddenly pinned to his chair just like at the café in Rethynnea. “That is my work,” Pelas murmured, but the man Tanis had just been speaking with was far away now, rep
laced by an alarming personage that shouted his crimes with rivers of blood. “Sometimes…” Pelas whispered, scaring Tanis with his change of manner, “most times…it overtakes me.” Then the moment was past, the beast retreating to its dark lair, and Pelas turned to gaze idly across the hills as if nothing had happened.
Tanis sucked in his breath in a little gasp, for he’d been quite too afraid to breathe. That Pelas could so readily become that other…it was terrifying.
“So…” Pelas remarked then, casting Tanis an inquisitive look. “What do you know of the Marquiin?”
Tanis was still trembling a little, but he could tell the beast was caged now and the likable man returned, so he answered hesitantly, “The Marquiin who tried to test me died in my arms.” Tanis didn’t like to remember those moments, for the man had been releasing all of the torment of several years into his expiring thoughts. Yet…something in the way Pelas asked the question made Tanis feel like he had to answer it. It felt similar to a truthreader’s compulsion, yet it was more like a quiet threat…a very clear, very real threat, like a stiletto pressed to your temple. Too, this threat came from the lucid Pelas, the one who was otherwise amiable and even kind in his way, which only made the threat all the more potent.
The boy realized what he was sensing was the talent of a skilled interrogator. Pelas’s power, whatever it was, did not merely compel Tanis to answer, it made him want to tell him all.
Helpless to resist, Tanis forced himself to remember that night, though it pained him greatly to dwell in those moments. “It’s just…perceptions, really,” he said then, glancing up to find Pelas regarding him intently.
“I’m interested in your perceptions.”
Tanis whetted his lips. “Very well. I…I’m not sure, but I think that the Prophet’s power corrupts a truthreader’s mind, and it only follows that this would inhibit his ability to wield elae. The Marquiin…” Tanis paused and rubbed uneasily at one eye. “Well… Prince Ean restored him in the end, and I saw some of his thoughts as he died. I didn’t wholly understand them, but it seemed like he’d been under some sort of fourth-strand compulsion. I don’t think he could actually work the fourth any more at all, even though it should’ve been within his nature as an Adept.” Tanis looked up at Pelas feeling heartbroken all over again. “Once Bethamin’s Fire took him, he lost all contact with elae.”
“So that’s how he’s doing it,” Pelas murmured, eyes alight. “Oh, Darshan…” Abruptly he focused on Tanis again. “This Prince Ean, the prince you served, he’s a wielder?”
Tanis shrugged. “I don’t really know what he is. I think he’s still trying to figure that out himself.”
“Fascinating.” Pelas shook his head wondrously. “Who knew when you appeared out of nowhere that you would prove such an intriguing diversion!”
Tanis frowned at him. “I’m honored to provide your entertainment, Sir.”
Pelas leveled him a quiet look. “Better this kind than the other.”
At which point Tanis paled considerably.
Pelas drank more of his wine and eyed Tanis over the rim. “And what of your parentage, young spy? Perhaps that will tell us something of your nature and why you are immune both to my power and Bethamin’s Fire.”
Tanis shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I know nothing of my parents.”
“Nothing?” Pelas leaned toward him. “I sense more than nothing in your thoughts.”
Tanis caught his lip between his teeth and gave him a tense look. Pelas demanded the whole truth, and the lad was helpless to keep from giving it. Whatever power Pelas wielded over him was agonizingly effective—but the man was requiring such private thoughts…every secret felt a bitter sacrifice.
“You’re correct, sir,” Tanis whispered finally, dropping his eyes to the goblet of wine sitting on the table before him. “I do know a…little more.” Tanis fought the urge to speak with every fiber of his being, but Pelas’s power drew it out of him. “I know that my mother and father lived by the sea. I know she was a truthreader and that my father called her Renaii.”
Pelas sat silent for a long time, considering him, while Tanis suffered a sick feeling in his stomach…consequence of giving in to whatever ill manner of power Pelas had been working upon him. He imagined this is the way one might feel after taking of an opiate and succumbing to pleasures debased and reviled. His self-respect lay crumpled in a sullied heap, stained with fluids better left unidentified. He hated the man in that moment for ripping the truth out of him so heartlessly.
Yet how does this differ from a truthreader’s working? he had to wonder. In truth, there was probably very little difference save that a truthreader had kings and queens justifying his actions when he tore the truth forcefully out of a man.
“Renaii,” Pelas finally said, pressing a long finger against his lips. “I know that word. Do you?”
Tanis shook his head.
“It means ‘light of my soul’ in Old Alæic, the first language of this world, that of the zanthyrs and the drachwyr…among others.”
Tanis frowned. “I was told it was an Agasi name.”
“I suppose it is—it’s also a term of endearment, like ‘darling’ or ‘my love’ yet revealing of deeper affection and regard.” He glanced to the sky and the sun at its zenith. “But look, it will be nearing sunset where we’re heading, and I do believe the party will be starting soon.” Pelas stood and looked down at him in a way that seemed almost friendly. “What do you say, little spy? Shall we be fashionably late?”
Right then, Tanis was loathing himself for following Pelas anywhere, but he went with him nonetheless.
Eight
“A brave man is one who recognizes Death waiting upon the path and walks with him anyway.”
- The Second Vestal Dagmar Ranneskjöld
Kjieran van Stone woke to a pounding on his door in the dead of night. He stumbled out of bed and threw the bolt to find an Ascendant waiting on the other side. A pageboy behind him held a torch, his eyes downcast.
“Yes, Ascendant?” Kjieran asked, keeping his eyes equally on the floor.
“The Prophet calls for you, acolyte.”
Kjieran’s heart leapt into a panic. “I should…I should dress,” he said.
“No, come as you are. Dare not keep the Prophet waiting.”
Kjieran wore naught but thin linen breeks, but he followed all the same. One simply did not question Bethamin’s Ascendants, and especially not within the confines of the temple.
To Kjieran’s rising horror, the Ascendant led him toward the Prophet’s private chambers. A multitude of fears bombarded him upon this realization, and he followed with effort, just concentrating on placing one foot before the other. It wouldn’t do to stumble and give the Ascendant reason to question his faith.
You’re still thinking you might come out of there intact.
Kjieran knew hope grew in scarce commodity in the Tempe of Tambarré, but he could do no less than cling to its fragile stalk. He held the last bastion between Bethamin and the world, and duty bound him to this task, even if it meant his death. This he had long accepted. He just hoped it would be death and not one of the many other eternal torments the Prophet meted as due reward to the faithful.
The towering doors that marked the Prophet’s chambers stood open upon their arrival, but the Ascendant stopped just without. “Go now, acolyte,” he ordered stiffly. “The Prophet awaits.”
Kjieran kept his gaze on his feet and headed into the Prophet’s private dwelling, cringing as he heard the doors close behind him. He pushed a hand to smooth back his shoulder-length black hair and braved a look around.
The chamber was large and open on one side to the breeze, while a vast room spread away to the left, its tall ceilings supported by rounded columns inscribed with strange writing that Kjieran thought might be the language of Myacene, from whence the Prophet hailed. Through this room he made his way, seeing no one until he reached the end and an octagonal antechamber. It was there that the Proph
et sat, bare-chested, one arm thrown over the back of a canvas chair with his long legs splayed before him.
“Come, Kjieran,” came the Prophet’s resonant voice.
Kjieran tried to hide his rising unease as he approached. He kept his eyes on his feet, yet still he felt the Prophet’s gaze upon him like the razor edge of an icy knife. In each moment that Kjieran endured Bethamin’s inspection, he could feel the knife caressing his skin as if determining which places were most likely to yield to gentle pressure and which would require a coordinated attack.
With downcast eyes, Kjieran saw the Prophet rise from his chair. In a moment he felt his frozen hands upon his bare shoulders, and the Prophet turned him to face the side of the octagonal room. Bethamin’s cold hands slipped from his shoulders then and came around onto his chest in a sort of embrace. Kjieran stifled a gasp and drew in a shuddering breath. “Look there, Kjieran,” the Prophet said from behind him, his breath a chill breeze in Kjieran’s ear.
Trembling, Kjieran lifted his eyes to look across the room, and there he saw a naked man lying face down upon the marble tiles. It was hard to know how he’d died, for this time there was no blood. Kjieran had cleaned up after many encounters that had not ended so neatly.
“I am most interested in this thing you call desire,” the Prophet observed then. “I’ve been studying it lately.” He grasped his own elbows around Kjieran’s bare chest as he held him close. The touch of his flesh was the bitter north wind, and Kjieran kept himself tense that the Prophet might not notice him shaking too badly. “It seems a wasted use of one’s energies,” Bethamin continued, “yet your kind appear to thrive on it.”
“Yes, my lord,” Kjieran whispered.
“How does one create desire, Kjieran?” the Prophet asked earnestly. “What is it, in your view?”
Kjieran knew better than to answer the Prophet with something he imagined the man would want to hear. There was no predicting his mind. “Desire is a quest, my lord,” he said after a moment, working hard to keep his teeth from chattering.
The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) Page 12