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

by McPhail, Melissa

  “Really? It’s seems pretty obvious to me.”

  Raine gave him a heated look. “Indeed, Carian vran Lea? Tell me then: why did Malachai beseech the Council of Realms for their help in bringing life to T’khendar if merely populating the place would’ve accomplished the deed?” He exhaled heavily and shook his head. “No…my oath-brother still has much to explain.”

  Carian left that one alone. He knew his boundaries, and Raine knew he had elae back now. You didn’t taunt a cornered skunk unless you wanted to walk around reeking for a week with your eyes and throat half-burned out.

  “Carian…” Raine said after a moment. When the pirate didn’t respond, Raine said again, more insistently, “Carian,” and knocked the pirate on the leg—hard. “What is that?”

  Carian opened one eye to look. Then he bolted upright. “I’ll be scuppered and sunk if that ain’t—” He jumped to his feet.

  A vessel was approaching in the distance. At first, all he could see of it was the long tail of sand rising in its wake, but as it neared, Carian recognized it as a sailcraft. He whooped a shout and clapped Raine on the shoulder. “We’re saved, poppet! I won’t have to eat you after all.”

  “I’m so relieved,” the Vestal remarked bleakly.

  Soon the craft had sailed close enough to make out the details of its construction. Its hull was slightly curved across the beam but more so along the keel, though the bottom was flat and smooth to allow for quick slippage across the sand. The gaff-rigged mainsail looked massive by comparison. But it was the man standing at the helm that had Carian grinning from ear to ear.

  The captain turned his sailcraft into the wind and eased off the sails, and the vessel slowed before them.

  Instantly Carian grabbed Gwynnleth up into his arms and went skipping and sliding down the dune. The captain slung himself out of the boat and landed in the deep sand just as Carian reached him. The pirate shoved the avieth into the other man’s large arms, let out a whooping holler and grabbed the both of them into a bear hug.

  “Balearic de Parma! What in Tiern’aval are you doing in T’khendar? Last I heard, half the Imperial Armada was in pursuit of the Black Gryphon! I thought I’d surely seen the last of you!”

  Balearic was such a beast of a man—broad-chested and thick armed—that the long-limbed avieth seemed frail in his grasp. He boasted wild black hair as long as Carian’s and more earrings than flesh in his ears. “We’ll get to that later,” he answered with a grin that jingled the charms braided into his beard. He hefted Gwynnleth in his arms and arched an unruly black eyebrow as he looked at her unconscious form. “Who’s this then?”

  “That’s Gwynnleth.” Carian gave her a sooty look for good measure. “She’s a pain in the arse apparently in any state of consciousness.”

  “And your friend?” Balearic inquired, lifting kohl-lined blue eyes to Raine, who was finally descending the dune.

  “Oh. That’s Raine D’Lacourte.”

  Balearic really arched brows at that. “Ah so…” He eyed Raine speculatively.

  “You gonna invite us on board, Balearic, or did you just stop to gloat like the gypsy you are?”

  “To be sure, to be sure,” Balearic returned. “Climb aboard and I’ll hand your lass up to ye. What did ye do to her anyway?”

  Carian clambered into the sailcraft and then reached down to take Gwynnleth from the captain. “I think she’s allergic to your lovely realm,” he answered. “Soon as we got here she started screaming.” Carian exhaled a grunt of protest as he lifted the avieth and laid her carefully down again on a bench to one side of the helm. “I thought that was annoying,” he added as he straightened, brushing hands against his britches, “but I’d willingly trade a ranting and screaming Gwynnleth for this one. At least the other version could walk.”

  Raine reached the bottom of the dune and approached Balearic. “Thank you for stopping for us, Captain,” he said solemnly, extending his hand. “I am Raine D’Lacourte.”

  “Balearic de Parma, your Excellence,” the gypsy returned, clasping wrists with the Vestal. “Welcome aboard.” He motioned toward his ship.

  Raine jumped up, grabbed the railing and easily swung his legs up and over the side to land gracefully on the deck.

  “Who knew you were so spry,” Carian observed, giving him a black look. “You should’ve been carrying her all this time!”

  Balearic climbed back aboard and took the helm. “Carian, you want to grab that sheet?” He indicated the line that controlled the mainsail.

  Carian jumped to, and shortly he’d maneuvered the sail back to catch the wind. The craft lurched into motion, and then they were spinning around and beating west with a spray of sand rising in a tempest behind them.

  Carian happily sank onto a bench built into the side of the sailcraft and took off his boots. “What are you doing out here, Balearic?” he asked as he emptied a small mountain of sand onto the deck. “Don’t tell me it was Fortune’s eye alone guided you to us.”

  Balearic nodded knowingly toward a dark spec just then flying low against the horizon.

  Carian followed his gaze and noted the Sundragon with a frown. “Oh. I suppose I should’ve guessed.”

  “The drachwyr sent you to retrieve us?” Raine asked from where he stood in the stern leaning against the railing and holding onto one of the lines for support.

  “Oh, no,” Balearic answered from the helm, shooting him a look over his shoulder. “He told us you two were out here, and when I heard my old friend Carian vran Lea had finally made it to T’khendar, well…I came as soon as the wind picked up.”

  “Told you I was popular,” Carian quipped with a toothy grin. He leaned back and clasped hands behind his head.

  “What do you do in this desert?” Raine inquired of the captain. “If you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Our troupe is Iluminari, your Excellence,” Balearic replied. “With the solstice celebration of Adendigaeth beginning soon, we’re preparing the fire candles. The Wyndlass is the only place in T’khendar for certain of the composites we need.”

  “Retired from the account, eh,” Carian noted, casting Balearic a consoling look. “That have something to do with the imperial navy?”

  “Aye, I have abandoned the sweet life,” Balearic admitted, shooting Carian a broad grin, “but it’s good here, too.”

  “I bet you find the part where half of the Empress’s fleet isn’t after you especially appealing, eh?”

  “I admit that is a dominant factor,” Balearic agreed. “Fortune must’ve had her eye on you though, lad,” he noted then, “for tomorrow we return to the cities. One day later tripping through that node, and you’d have been at the mercy of the First Lord’s drachwyr.”

  “One place I vow never to be! I suppose you have room for us to tag along with the troupe?”

  “Oh, aye.” Balearic grinned. “Always have room for working hands. It’s six days to Renato, and about the same from there to Niyadbakir. You really found your way to the far edge of the realm, you know.”

  “You can blame Franco Rohre for that,” Carian grumbled. He was going to have words with that man if they ever met. Right after he kissed the hallowed ground he walked on.

  “If I may ask, Captain,” Raine said then. “How long have you been in T’khendar?”

  “Nine years, your Excellence.”

  “And how did you come to be here at all?”

  Balearic turned him an uncertain look over his shoulder.

  “I assure you, Captain, my interest is purely scholarly. I won’t be tracking anyone down in the name of justice.”

  Balearic turned forward again to gaze across the bow as he guided the ship. “There’s those that will bring you here, for a price, my lord.”

  “How?”

  “On the nodes, of course,” Carian supplied. “I told you—”

  “I know, I know,” Raine held up a hand to quiet the pirate. “You traveled to T’khendar and lived to speak of it—only you didn’t speak of it, Caria
n, or I might’ve asked many more questions when my need to understand wasn’t nearly as dire.”

  Balearic gave the Vestal another considering glance. “From what I understand, your Excellence, there’s times of the year when the nodes can be traveled safely. Then again, I don’t know as the First Lord doesn’t just decide to untwist them twice a year and let it be known thusly. There’s lots goes on here in T’khendar that you learn to take with a grain of salt, if you know what I mean, my lord.”

  “And when attempting to understand my oath-brother’s activities,” Raine muttered, “it must be taken by the handful.”

  The sun hung low to the horizon when they reached the Iluminari camp. Ten colorful wagons formed a circle around a large stone well, and campfires were already going when Balearic eased off the wind and drifted in. A host of sailcraft were anchored off to the south of the campsite, and Balearic guided their own craft smoothly into place beside the outermost of these.

  “Come,” he said to his guests, “join our camp. Eat and be welcome.”

  Raine and Carian disembarked—for all his complaining, the pirate collected the avieth the moment the craft was moored, even though Raine seemed of a mind to do so as well—and followed Balearic into the camp.

  The Iluminari made them welcome, showering them with hot food and water and strong drink and giving them beds in which to sleep. As the stars came out to embellish the heavens, the gypsy camp broke into spirited celebration, with much singing and dancing within the circle of campfires.

  Though always polite, Raine remained quiet and withdrawn throughout the evening. Carian kept his eye on the man as much as he did on the avieth. Though he’d never have admitted it to anyone—least of all Raine—he was concerned about the Vestal. Carian had swallowed more than a few harsh realities in his time, but he knew these same truths would be even harder for Raine to digest.

  So after scraping his plate clean and draining Balearic’s bottle of rum, the pirate made his way to where Raine sat upon the steps of a wagon. “You know,” Carian said as he settled down on the step beside Raine, “that Rohre character did say that the Fifth Vestal would tell you everything.”

  “I recall the moment, Carian.”

  “I only mean,” the pirate replied, giving him an aggravated look—you try to be nice to people! “I only mean that he’s likely still willing to ‘tell you his mind’ as Rohre put it. Don’t you think?”

  “I have long stopped trying to predict what Björn will do, Carian,” Raine replied resignedly. “Good night to you.” He stood and went inside the wagon.

  Staring after him, Carian decided that was the last time he would ever feel sorry for the damned Vestal, even though he knew it probably wasn’t. And over the course of the following weeks as they traveled with the Iluminari, he proved himself entirely right.

  Ten

  “The realm offers no mysteries greater than the soul. The richest adventure is in discovering ourselves.”

  - D’Nofrio of Rogue, Sormitáge Scholar, circa 341aV

  Ean woke to sunlight streaming through mullioned windows. As he lay in a four-poster bed large enough to comfortably accommodate five, he reviewed what he remembered. Too well he recalled the battle at the Temple of the Vestals in Rethynnea, of holding desperately onto the tiniest thread of Rinokh’s pattern as Creighton’s Shade pulled the volatile man across a node…of the entire temple structure disintegrating around them.

  It was everything else that was fuzzy.

  He had a vague memory of crossing the node with Franco, both of them near collapse, and being greeted by a host of obsidian-eyed Shades who amazingly were trying to help them. He recalled being led down an endless hallway that seemed an acute form of torture in itself. He remembered a steaming bathtub, a plate of food he could barely find the energy to touch, and after that…nothing.

  Feeling much restored that morning, however, Ean sat up in bed and looked around. The room where he slept was palatial. The soaring ceiling displayed colorful frescoes above walls paneled in blue silk. As he swung out of bed, his feet sank into soft Akkadian carpets. He walked to an armoire the size of a small house and opened one of its five doors to find more clothing than any one man should possess. His sword was hanging inside the second door he opened. He stood for a moment marveling at the assortment of clothing in fine silks, velvets and wools—all, he suspected, tailored specifically for him.

  Ean selected a soft blue-grey silk tunic whose cuffs were worked with silver thread and a pair of black pants that fit him like a glove. Three pairs of boots waited his pleasure, but he chose the ones that clearly were his own, and once he’d belted on his sword, he felt…

  He wasn’t sure how he felt.

  Hale. Restored, certainly. Confused beyond belief. Relieved. Tormented by guilt. Apprehensive. Fearful for those left behind.

  It was hard to imagine one soul could feel so myriad and varied emotions at once.

  He wandered the room, seeing the remains of a meal left upon the table, food he didn’t remember eating. He saw a chair still wearing the impression of the man who’d sat within it, and an empty goblet on a marble-topped table.

  Walking onto his balcony, the sight stole his breath.

  From the varied tales circulating of T’khendar—perpetuated mainly by those who’d never been there—Ean expected to see a black basalt castle lording over a red desert that stretched for miles. Instead, he found an alabaster city of surpassing beauty surrounded by lush green mountains.

  Niyadbakir.

  The name floated to him from the recesses of memory—whether recent or distant he couldn’t say.

  The city crowned the entire mountainside, domes and spires lifting to spear the clear sky, gardens everywhere between, and bridges arching from building to building, tower to elegant tower. Leaning across his balcony railing to peer around a cupola, he saw a distant waterfall cascading down into mist, its length crossed by three grey-white stone bridges. Beneath him—far below at the palace base—a vast garden drank in the morning sunlight, its fountains glittering. And east of the white city, farmland stretched for miles—huge blocks of green and gold patch-working the eastern horizon—while lush, jagged mountains rose again to form the valley’s southern border. The city bustled beneath him, and Ean watched from on high as men and women—who seemed but tiny, industrious ants—went about their business.

  T’khendar.

  Incredible to realize this view, this scene of productivity and…normalcy, was in T’khendar—that he was in T’khendar!

  Ean’s stomach growled voraciously, and he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he actually ate a meal. Heading back inside then, he found his way through his apartments, and after choosing several wrong doors, finally found one leading into a hallway. Though nothing looked familiar, he went left toward a tiered fountain and an atrium where other passages intersected.

  As he walked, more images returned to him. He remembered Franco hugging him farewell, Creighton’s Shade helping him into bed, a man’s face—Björn’s?—staring closely at his. A hand reaching to cover his eyes…

  With the vision of Björn came a sudden acute anxiety—apprehension and uncertainty flooded him, and he unconsciously slowed his pace.

  It was so much to take in.

  Before the battle in the Temple of the Vestals in Rethynnea, Creighton had told Ean more than he could easily comprehend in one month, much less a single hour—Raine’s truth, but he’d had so little time to process any of it.

  Between Creighton’s rushed explanation, which had resulted in Ean’s sudden defection, and the present moment, Ean had betrayed his friends, abandoned his cousin in a petrified state, and openly defied the Fourth Vestal. He’d been blasted, threatened with annihilation, and nearly killed just holding onto Rinokh’s pattern.

  Reckless and brash?

  Absolutely. He’d proven Morin d’Hain right time and time again, and it rankled that the man’s assessment had been so inescapably accurate.

  Ean
stood still in the midst of the hallway considering all that had come before. Despite the thick, clinging cobwebs of guilt, he…well, somehow…he still felt he’d made the right decision.

  He couldn’t explain why he felt this way—he certainly couldn’t justify it with any logical rationale—but while he felt regretful that he’d had to make the choices he made, he didn’t actually regret making them. Despite all logic and reason, he thought he’d made the right choice that night with Creighton—Raine’s truth, he hoped he had anyway, for he’d certainly alienated himself from all who loved him in the doing. The worst part was that the feeling came with no reassurance, only a hollow sense of solitude.

  ‘Players make their moves at will,’ the zanthyr’s words, ever wise, ever true. ‘…reassured only by their own resolve…protected by no one, and shielded by nothing but the force of their conviction.’

  As he started walking again, Ean wondered somewhat resentfully if Phaedor was ever wrong about anything. These spiraling thoughts absorbed him as he reached the fountain and—

  And came face to face with a Shade.

  The prince drew back with a startled intake of breath. Without question, before him stood the same Shade who’d taken him hostage that night. The shock of that remembered moment urged Ean to draw his blade, and he had to consciously restrain himself from reaching for it.

  How many months had he dreamed of meeting this creature face to face? How many nights envisioning this moment and what he would do, what he would say? All of it wasted, in vain…the ignorant dream of a naïve boy. Every conception he’d had of this creature had been completely wrong!

  “Be welcome, Ean,” the Shade finally said, trying to ease the awkward tension binding them in that indefinite moment, two statues locked in stone while the winds of Ean’s emotion blasted and buffeted them. The Shade placed palms together, pressed fingertips to his lips and bowed.

  Ean called his composure to heel, feeling awkward and embarrassed. “Reyd…wasn’t it?” he managed.