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

by McPhail, Melissa

  “Try,” Markal muttered. “Don’t try. Try isn’t KNOW. Know is a state of being. It is the aggregate of certainty over energy, space, matter, time and form. It is the exact existence of a thing—the fullness of its complete concept. It is KNOW!”

  “Yes, but I don’t know the pattern!” Ean snapped.

  “The First Law doesn’t say ‘know the pattern,’” Markal returned scornfully. “The First Law says nothing about patterns.”

  The First Law doesn’t say anything about beating up students with your staff either, Ean thought resentfully, but he kept this sentiment to himself.

  “Again,” Markal said, brandishing his staff, relentless in his expectation. “You have to KNOW that the rope will stop the staff.”

  Frustrated, Ean snarled, “It’s just a rope!”

  “It’s whatever you want it to be,” Markal returned resolutely.

  Two hours and at least thirty bruises later, Ean was still no closer to knowing how to make the rope stop the staff, but he had definitely decided that little else was going to be learned by letting Markal beat him to a pulp.

  He’d seen the man turn the rope into the staff. Ean reasoned that if there was a pattern holding the staff in that form, he could as easily unwork it as work some new pattern on his own rope.

  He set to searching for the pattern as soon as he happened upon the idea, and he found it almost at once.

  The next time Markal came at him with the staff, Ean snared the pattern and unworked it with ease. The staff collapsed harmlessly back to rope. Ean gave him a triumphant look.

  Markal straightened and began coiling the rope in his hand, leveling Ean a quiet, contemptuous stare. “So I see you haven’t changed. You have ever only resorted to one skill to solve all your problems—an indolent and shiftless approach to the Art. I’m only surprised you let me beat you up half the day before you used it.” With that, he walked across the yard. “Tomorrow. Dawn,” he said without looking back.

  Ean found his way to his rooms smarting on the inside as much as out. Markal’s sharp words of censure had unexpectedly wounded him. He never imagined being compared against the standard of his own misdeeds—ones he couldn’t even remember, no less! How could he but make the same mistakes if it was so impossible to change his basic nature? Did that mean he was doomed to die yet again, no matter what the First Lord said about Balance?

  Worse, he had honestly been trying for most of the day to do what Markal asked of him. He didn’t know what he was doing wrong. He didn’t know why it wasn’t working, and he was just as disappointed in himself as Markal obviously was. Raine’s truth, the man was impossible! Every bit as insufferable as the zanthyr, but at least the zanthyr had been sort of nice to him.

  Quit feeling sorry for yourself, he chastised with gritted teeth, yet that innocent, selfless part of him that had been honestly trying now felt hopelessly wounded. As he reached his rooms in shame, it crawled beneath the sideboard and refused to come out again, leaving Ean with only his bitter, self-absorbed side for company.

  He found a hot bath waiting for him, and after an hour’s soak he’d managed to relieve some of the stiffness, but he knew tomorrow would be a painful repeat of today if he didn’t have some brilliant realization between now and then.

  Just as he stood to depart the tub, there came a knock on his door. Ean glanced toward the robe folded on a chair far across the room. “Just a moment,” he called, climbing out of the tub.

  The door opened and Ean turned, dripping.

  “Am I interrupting,” Isabel inquired, standing framed in the portal.

  Ean skipped forward, grabbed up his robe and wrapped himself in it. Blindfold or no, Isabel gave him the impression that she could see perfectly well, and it wasn’t proper for an unmarried lady to see a man so bared. “If you were hoping to catch me naked and unawares,” Ean returned with the slightest flush, “your timing was a little off, my lady.”

  She smiled. “Was it?” She moved slowly through the door letting her black staff lead the way. She wore a dark silk gown that afternoon, the belled sleeves embroidered in silver ivy. As always, a black silk scarf embraced her eyes like a jealous lover, its long folds left free to mingle with her lustrous chestnut hair.

  “Markal mentioned you might be in need of a Healer,” she said as she made her slow approach.

  Gazing upon her, Ean felt suddenly as if a lost part of himself had returned, and only in its recovery could he admit the terrible loss he’d endured at its lacking. He stood and drank in the sight of her.

  Isabel stopped mere inches away and rested her staff on the floor, leaving it to stand freely in midair. She placed her palm on his wet chest. “Mmm,” she murmured. “Your pattern is definitely frayed. Shall I smooth it for you?”

  “What would that entail?” Ean inquired breathlessly. To have her touch upon his bare skin…

  Isabel placed her other hand on his chest, and heat flooded Ean. “Isabel…” he whispered, closing his eyes against surging feelings.

  “Shh…” She moved even closer, so they stood nearly in an embrace; only the width of her hands separated them. Ean watched his own chest rising and falling with his quickening breath and drew in the scent of her. And the blindfold! Oh, how it stirred him. He wanted to take it off and gaze into her eyes, ever denied him, but he also wanted to take her blindfolded until she begged for a release only he might offer. Dear Epiphany, the things he envisioned them doing together…

  “The healing goes faster when the subject’s mind is less active,” Isabel advised with a half-smile hinting in the corner of her lips.

  “Whyever would I want that?”

  She chuckled. “You do not fear the consequences of courting Epiphany’s Prophet?”

  “There is no fear I wouldn’t face to stay forever at your side, Isabel.”

  “Hmm…” she murmured, and her teasing smile was a delightful torment.

  A heartbeat later, Ean felt the last of his pain easing and knew she’d completed her Healing. He grabbed her hands before she could remove them, pinning them instead against his skin that he might feel her touch just a few moments more.

  She stood and let him maintain their silent contact, their bodies close enough to feel each other’s warmth. Finally, when the desire to seal his mouth upon hers and carry her to his bed was more than he could bear, Ean released her hands and exhaled a breath, stepping back.

  She gave him her smile as a parting kiss.

  “When—” he asked with sudden desperation.

  “Dinner,” she murmured as she turned and took up her staff. He watched her leave and close the door. Then he sagged into his chair and pushed a hand to his head. Epiphany preserve me from this woman! For what he’d said had been completely true. There was no evil in the world he wouldn’t face if his reward was eternity with Isabel van Gelderan.

  Twenty

  “No move is made as doesn’t affect every other. The game is played upon the lake of time, casting ripples through the ages.”

  - Ramuhárikhamáth, Lord of the Heavens

  Just as Ean was about to put on his boots and head out, there came another knock on his door. Hoping it was Isabel, he opened the door instead to the face of a Shade. It took him a precious few heartbeats to recognize Creighton.

  “Ean!” the Shade grabbed him into a joyous embrace.

  But Ean was so startled to see him, and so disappointed in the same moment that it wasn’t Isabel standing there instead, that he stiffened within Creighton’s arms.

  The Shade withdrew at once. “I’m…sorry,” he said, his silver face betraying his deep injury at Ean’s unintended rebuff. “I shouldn’t have presumed, Ean. I just thought…”

  His expression tore at Ean’s heart. “Creighton, oh gods, no. I didn’t mean—”

  But the Shade was already fading.

  Ean stood in the threshold for a long time cursing himself.

  When he finally made it to dinner, his heart felt as heavy as a stone in his chest. While hi
s rejection of Creighton had been unintentional, he admitted he was still uncomfortable around Creighton’s Shade and could not bring himself to think of this…unearthly representation as truly being his blood-brother.

  They took dinner that evening in Björn’s private garden, a lush habitat of soaring acacia trees, coconut palms and tropical flowers. The First Lord stood to receive Ean as he was shown out onto the marble patio. The table was set for three, but Isabel had not yet arrived.

  “Welcome, Ean. Thank you for joining me tonight.”

  “I am honored, First Lord,” Ean replied while taking a seat. He couldn’t help but admire the incredible diversity of the flora. “This is a marvelous place,” he observed.

  “Thank you, yes. This part of the mountain protects natural hot springs. The elms were dying, but these tropicals, as you can see, have flourished.” He sat back in his chair and gestured with his goblet as he noted philosophically, “All creatures cannot be crammed into the same mold. Creation is frenzied and diverse, unrestricted by human concepts and boundaries.” He eyed Ean inquisitively then. “And how did your training go with Markal?”

  “The man has it in for me,” Ean muttered tactlessly, only to immediately regret his outburst. “Forgive me,” he said, dropping his eyes with embarrassment. “That was churlish of me, and uncalled for. My day has been…difficult.”

  Björn gave him a tolerant look. “No doubt this is exactly how it seems to you,” he admitted. “Yet if that were true, if Markal cared but little, he would merely teach you as he does the others. They have an infinity of time in which to learn—lifetimes of study yet before them. You—we—don’t have that luxury. You must relearn or remember as much as you can in the time allowed us, and unfortunately, such forgotten lessons are rarely recovered to our consciousness except out of dire necessity.”

  Björn settled him an even look, but there was no way to diminish the seriousness of his words. “Markal does what he does, Ean, because if there is a way for us to prevail in this endeavor—if there is a way for you to do this without sacrificing your life in the bargain—this training will lie at the base of it.”

  Ean heard these words and knew he spoke the truth, yet he still didn’t know what ‘this endeavor’ actually encompassed. And he was too embarrassed—too certain that he ought to know this above all—to ask. He rested elbows on the marble table and sank his head into his hands. “There’s so much I don’t remember,” he lamented miserably. “Why can’t I remember?”

  “The veil of death occludes your past,” Björn said with immense compassion. “It was meant to be a mercy, this amnesia, to give us each a new start in the Returning. Most organisms learn through the process of death—their evolution through death and rebirth gives them sharper claws, tougher skin, stronger poison. But for the gift of immortal souls, humanity merely carries forward. We remain tied to the deeds of our past, still the unconditional effect of mistakes made ages ago. We haven’t evolved, you see, and we cannot escape our choices, in this life or the next.”

  Ean looked up at him with his head still resting in his hands. “Can we remember?”

  “Certainly.”

  “How?”

  “One merely must take ownership of—must claim, in effect—every action he has ever caused.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Ean grunted derisively and rested his forehead in his palms again. Might as well say I should just decide to spontaneously combust. That would be easier to manage.

  “I did not say it would be easy,” Björn advised, blue eyes twinkling, “only that it is not impossible.”

  Isabel arrived on the heels of this pronouncement, much to Ean’s immense pleasure and relief—for he had not realized until that moment the anxiety that clenched him in her absence, nor how the anticipation of her arrival had strung a tight thread of tension from heart to loins.

  That night she wore a satin gown of the darkest sapphire, with a wide neckline that extended gracefully from shoulder to shoulder and revealed an enticing portion of her décolletage. Her luscious hair was embellished with twisting braids and caught up with sapphire pins.

  As always, the black silk blindfold separated her from Ean in a way that was deeply profound to him. Though he didn’t understand how or why, he knew it represented an intimate connection—their connection, as unexplainable as this seemed—yet he got the sense she was wearing it for him. Even while it tormented and excited him, so also did it stand as a tribute, a troth. He knew this in the same way he’d known Björn was telling him the truth about having lived and died before…in the same way he’d recognized the Extian Doors. Yet he didn’t know how he knew this, and it wasn’t a subject he was ready to discuss with Isabel. The topic remained too raw and tender, their budding relationship too new.

  Ean and Björn both stood to receive Isabel, the latter kissing her on both cheeks. “Sister,” Björn murmured as he took her hand and guided her to her chair. “A ravishing choice of gowns. You do us great honor.”

  Isabel settled into her seat and smiled up at him as he released her hand. She looked to Ean, though how she knew so precisely where he was—how she saw at all with the blindfold constantly across her eyes—remained a mystery. “Feeling better, my lord?”

  “Much, thanks to you,” Ean replied, feeling a warm flush suffusing him, the product of her attention.

  Björn raised his goblet. “To my sister,” he said, “a woman of many talents.”

  Ean clinked glasses with him as Isabel decorously received their admiration.

  Björn waved an airy hand then, and servants appeared carrying silver trays emitting a tantalizing combination of spices and fragrances. Sensitive to Ean’s troubled state of mind, Isabel kept the dinner conversation light, chatting amiably of her work with Markal’s students or the ongoing Adendigaeth festival in the cities. The courses were prepared and served perfectly, and Ean felt much restored when the meal was complete.

  When the table had been cleared and everyone was well sated, Isabel stood, and both men rose with her. “Thank you for the lovely dinner, brother of my heart.”

  Björn nodded, “As always, dear sister, your presence makes it more than remarkable.”

  She smiled for his pleasure and announced then, “I wonder if I might have an escort through the gardens? It is too nice an evening to forego admiring them.”

  Ean was quick to fulfill her need. “It would be my greatest pleasure, my lady.”

  “Mmm,” she purred. “Why thank you, my lord.” She held out her hand in that delicate way, and Ean moved swiftly around the table to place his arm beneath her fingers.

  Down into the garden, they walked among towering acacia and their smaller counterparts, royal flame-trees with their brilliant orange-red flowers. The night was balmy, a warmth aided by the presence of the near hot springs, and the air came soft and fragrant with camellia, liliko’i fruit, and jasmine. Stars peeked here and there through the high canopy, but for Ean, nothing in the garden approached the glory of Isabel’s smile.

  “You are thoughtful tonight, my lord,” she noted as they tread upon a path overgrown with tiny white flowers, each footstep releasing a flush of fragrance.

  “I felt very…inadequate today.” It surprised him how easily he told her things—even the most personal and embarrassing things—without hesitation.

  “In what way could you ever be inadequate?” she returned with a smile.

  “No, I was quite a disappointment, even to myself. I knew what Markal wanted me to do, but I…I couldn’t make anything happen. In the end…well, in the end, I gave up.” He shook his head. “A poor showing all around.”

  “You were working with the First Law?”

  “KNOW the effect you intend to create,” he said despondently. “I tried so many different ways to make the rope stop the staff. Nothing worked. I don’t know the pattern—”

  “The pattern has nothing to do with it.”

  “So Markal pointed out.”

  “Patterns are but one way, Ean,�
� she advised then, her tone gentle but firm. “An Adept of a particular strand rarely needs to ‘know’ the pattern because he inherently knows the pattern. As in knowing—a conceptual understanding of all that it is, its energy, its material composition, its exact form, even its placement in space and time. Do you understand? Adepts think in the patterns of their strand. When you have no inherent connection to a particular strand of elae, then you must learn the pattern in order to compel that thing or that strand.” She stopped and turned to him, placing her hand to cup his cheek tenderly. “But this is not the case for you.”

  He desired so much to press his lips into her palm, to take her in his arms, but he stood as stone and breathed in the scent of her and let her touch be enough…almost.

  “Take the chemists of the Iluminari,” she said by way of example. “They work with complicated mathematical formulae to achieve the perfect combination of powders to create the Fire Candles we will see exploding on the Longest Night. Without those equations to guide the chemists, the powders would not ignite. Yet the drachwyr might cause the same explosions by merely envisioning their occurrence as a child daydreams of clouds in the sky.”

  She placed her hand on Ean’s chest, and he covered it with his own as she continued, “If you were like Markal, with no inherent connection to the fifth, then yes, what he demands would be impossible without envisioning a pattern. But Ean…you work the fifth as an Adept. Like the drachwyr, fifth-strand patterns are ingrained in how you think. You need only remember how to think with them.” She put both hands to his face and chided tenderly, “Ean, you must let yourself remember this.”

  Ean knew he couldn’t remain there with her like that and not try to kiss her. The tension he felt in response to her touch became an insatiable need to possess her. It pulsed through him, wakening and heightening every sense so that he felt too alive, as though his very skin was aflame. These emotions only throttled him when he already battled with so much.