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

by McPhail, Melissa

  “Get after him, Joss,” Raliax growled, “lest I claim his value in your blood.”

  “No,” said Işak in a low voice, commanding silence and stillness from the group. They knew him as a wielder and were suspicious and wary of him, but they listened when he spoke. “Are you certain you marked him, Sharpe?”

  “Sure as silver.”

  “Fine. He won’t get far, and in this darkness Joss would be as likely to walk past him as trip over his body. Better to search in the morning.”

  “He’ll be dead by morning,” Sharpe pointed out.

  “Then he’ll be especially easy to find.” Işak assessed the assembled prisoners from beneath the deep cowl of his cloak. He liked the sense of anonymity his hood gave, even if it was only a pretense. “So who do we have?”

  Joss grabbed the prisoners, one by one, and yanked them to their knees. Işak was pleased to note the last one, the one he still had bound with the fourth, was by far the most docile of the group—though to be certain he’d fought the fiercest from what Işak had seen of him back in the canyon.

  “You heard him,” Joss said, kicking at the one on the end. “Give the man your name.”

  When none of them immediately replied, Raliax sighed dramatically and remarked, “You can give us your names and live, or keep them and die. Choose quickly.”

  Joss kicked the first man in the gut this time, and he doubled over, snarling through gritted teeth, “Cayal val Oren.”

  Joss kicked at the next man. He spun a defiant glare at Joss and earned a fist to his jaw in reward. “Lots more where that came from if you’re hungry for it,” Joss told him. “Give the man your name.” When the prisoner didn’t respond, Joss slammed his boot into his back, and he went sprawling face down into the dirt. Joss hauled him up again with a sigh. “Your name.”

  “Brody,” he said in a voice like gravel.

  “And you?” Joss addressed a fierce looking man who sat taller than the other two. Işak had noticed him fighting and was impressed with his competence with a blade. The man said nothing, so Joss battered him into the dirt and hauled him up again. This continued twice more until the last man, the one Işak had under compulsion, said in a quiet voice, tightly controlled, “Rhys…do what he asks. They have our names already.”

  Işak arched a brow. He knew his prisoner must be suffering beneath the working he held upon him, and it suited him to continue it—the better to keep him docile, as Dore had so viciously taught him—but he would not have imagined the man capable of thought with such compulsion capturing his consciousness. His intelligence shone equally through, for he’d accurately estimated their situation.

  The soldier named Rhys shot the other prisoner a sideways glance. Işak could see him deliberating, but he finally growled, “Lord Captain Rhys val Kincaide.”

  “Excellent,” Raliax rubbed his hands together. “We’ve the Nodefinder and the other injured soldier, and the dead cousin, once found, makes seven. They will provide a fine incentive to draw out our missing prince.” He spun away and headed to his tent, calling upon another of his men to follow.

  “But who is the last?” Işak asked then, his curiosity piqued. He peered intently down upon his prisoner from the depths of his hood.

  With an obvious force of will, the man lifted grey eyes to look up at Işak. It must’ve cost him greatly, but he managed a hoarse reply, “Trell…val Lorian.”

  Trell val Lorian!

  Işak barely concealed his shock. “Impossible! Trell val Lorian died… years ago.” Strange that he could not now remember how many years that was meant to be, but his days since N’ghorra were naught but a solid span of living hell. Was it truly surprising that time lost all meaning?

  The prisoner dropped his head again, succumbing perhaps to Işak’s compulsion upon him, and yet…something did seem familiar about the man. If it really was Trell, he would’ve been but a teen when Işak last gazed upon him.

  Yet if Trell val Lorian wasn’t dead, then why—

  Something wormed inside Işak at this question, something both vile and treacherous. It leaped from the deep darkness of Dore’s web of spells to entangle Işak with shards of memory.

  His head burst with a pain so violent as to momentarily blind him, so powerful that Işak nearly lost his hold on the patterns binding Trell, but he retained them in the last, gritting his teeth against the inexplicable explosion in his skull.

  What is happening to me?

  He felt as if a door had been cleaved, one he’d never known existed, and now he gaped in horror at the filth seeping out through the cracks—filth that he realized had been thriving in his mind.

  Only as he recovered did Işak note the avid whispering among Raliax’s men. The man himself emerged from his tent just moments later. He came stalking across the camp to grab up Trell by the hair and stare into his face, searching his features. “It is you!” he hissed after a breath of time. He slung the prince to the dirt, pointing and shouting madly, “But I watched you die! I saw you die!”

  Işak had never seen the man so insane with fury. He stalked around an incapacitated Trell, snarling and spitting curses, mad as a cornered snake. After a few savage moments of this, he kicked the prince several times, screaming, “I put you into the Fire Sea five years ago roped to an accursed trunk! You could not have survived!”

  This wild, unadvised outburst earned the fury of the other prisoners, all of whom had to be forcefully subdued—the Lord Captain alone taking two men to hold him down whilst a third made a pulp of his face.

  Still lying on his side in the throes of Işak’s compulsion, Trell gave Raliax a humorless smile reminiscent of torments unknown. “It seemed Fate had…a different end…in mind for me.”

  Raliax roared in fury and stalked off, hissing and cursing foully. Joss and several others rushed after him, and a heated argument soon erupted between them at the edge of camp.

  The enormous implications of Raliax’s confession had Işak reeling.

  “I put you into the Fire Sea five years ago…”

  Learning that Raliax was the man responsible for Trell’s purported death was shocking enough—but Işak couldn’t understand how the king could’ve blamed him for Trell’s death if he was already in N’ghorra?

  For as long as he could remembered, Işak had believed the king blamed him for the death of his two eldest sons, but now he realized that couldn’t be true. And why couldn’t he remember the moment of his actual banishment, when they’d surely laid the dreadful sentence upon him?

  Once, he’d been so certain of the vendetta he held against King Gydryn. Now the memories that had been writ in a heart of stone were bleeding into streaks of painful color. Işak felt unglued, unhinged.

  Things no longer fit. He knew this. He just didn’t know what pieces had fallen away and caused the foundations of his consciousness to tremble so.

  As Işak stared uncomprehendingly at the prince, Trell slowly pushed back to his knees and pinned his grey eyes upon him in return. Even possessed by compulsion, the prince’s gaze speared Işak. “Why are you…trying to…find…my brother?”

  What power of concentration to form thought around such treacherous patterns as Işak had thrust upon him. Yet Işak was hardly faring better, for he battled his own demons now. Ironic, he thought as he stared at Trell, that while he bound Trell’s mind, the prince had somehow found a way of binding his in return.

  “Ean val Lorian owes a debt to the Prophet,” Işak answered tightly while his mind continued that desperate search for the missing piece of the puzzle called his past. Frowning beneath his hood, Işak looked to the Lord Captain, who seemed slightly more pliable now that he’d been effectively bloodied.

  “So your middle prince survived Raliax’s best efforts, it would seem,” Işak posed, relieved to note his voice carrying such cool dispassion, for surely he was straining to accomplish it, “and we shall soon have the youngest in our grasp. But what of the other prince. The firstborn. What of him?”

  R
hys spat blood onto the earth. “Dead, of course,” he grated through swollen lips. “Our Prince Sebastian was killed by Basi assassins eight years ago—”

  Işak’s entire consciousness exploded with pain.

  The pattern he wielded against Trell instantly dissolved as Işak tumbled into blinding, unimaginable agony—it was Dore’s working all over again! He staggered away, unable to think, unable even to breathe...

  “Get him!” someone yelled at the same time that Işak barely heard another man shout, “Raliax!” but he could only grab for a near tent pole and cling to it, gasping, as a suddenly freed Trell stole a sword and attacked Raliax at the camp’s shadowed edge. To Işak’s ravaged consciousness, they seemed demons battling in the night.

  The two fought fiercely while the Saldarians stood stunned, apparently wondering whether or not to interrupt. The prince was winning, and might’ve claimed Raliax if the latter hadn’t shouted urgently for someone to grab the damnable man and pull him off.

  In fact, it took five Saldarians to subdue the prince. The smartest of the bunch finally knocked him unconscious with the hilt of his sword. They dragged him back to the fire and bound him with stout rope that time.

  The Lord Captain was laughing in a low gurgling wheeze. “Would’ve killed you,” he rumbled happily, eyeing Raliax.

  Joss went over and kicked him, but Işak could still hear the Lord Captain laughing even as he bled into the dirt.

  ...killed by Basi assassins eight years ago…

  Işak’s own reaction baffled him. Why had those words so shaken him? What untold working upon his consciousness had the words disturbed?

  Raliax stalked up to Işak, pushed his nose inches away and snarled, “You gimp-legged bastard! What were you bloody thinking, letting him at me like that?”

  Işak collected himself quickly then and focused upon the face accosting him. “Your tone is somewhat lacking for respect, Raliax.” He recaptured the pattern he’d just used on Trell and released it onto Raliax instead.

  The Saldarian swore an oath and grabbed Işak by the collar of his cloak. “Get it off me!”

  “Or what?” Işak whispered, low and dangerous. He made the pattern more solid, and Raliax gasped. He clutched at Işak as he fell to his knees, but the pattern had him firmly. “You forget your place,” Işak warned, looking down coldly upon the man, whose face was twisted now in agony and pressed deeply into the earth. “Shall I leave you to consider our varying roles, or can you behave?”

  After a moment, Raliax’s hand twitched, which Işak took as an affirmation. He allowed the pattern to dissipate as the collected energies of elae gradually exhausted themselves. Raliax sucked in a shuddering breath.

  “Come inside,” Işak growled. “We need to talk.” He turned his attention to the men and ordered in a voice loud enough to be heard by all, “Secure the prisoners and break camp! At dawn we ride.”

  Işak ducked inside his tent and pushed back his hood as he walked to pour himself a drink. It appalled him to see his hand shaking upon the task. What is happening to me?

  “Do that again in front of my men and I’ll gut you in your sleep.”

  Işak turned a look over his shoulder to find Raliax standing at the tent’s entrance. “Give me a reason to think you might, and I will bind you to my will with the fifth,” he lied. Dore never would’ve given him such knowledge, but Raliax didn’t know that. Işak looked back to his hands and willed them to stop shaking. “Tell me…” he said, laying a fourth-strand truth pattern upon the Saldarian, for he would not believe anything Raliax offered willingly. “What is the story behind your failed assassination of Trell val Lorian?”

  Raliax glared at him as Işak moved to sit in a folding camp chair near a glowing brazier. He’d hoped its warmth would soothe the ice spreading through his soul, yet he barely felt its heat. As the brazier’s light fell upon the left half of Işak’s face, casting his scarred right cheek in shadow, Raliax’s eyes widened. Işak missed this change, for he’d focused his attention on ensuring the man didn’t see how troubled he was by the night’s events.

  “The real story now,” he said as he settled in, “if you please.”

  Raliax just stared at him.

  Işak interpreted his look as defiance. “I can make it hurt.”

  It took a moment, but the Saldarian moved slowly inside the tent and let the flap close behind him, pinning Işak all the while with a razor-edged stare. “I don’t know why they wanted the prince killed,” he finally answered, resentful and belligerent. “I only know hal’Jaitar hired me to take care of it.”

  “Viernan hal’Jaitar? Wielder to Radov?”

  Raliax nodded confirmation, albeit unwillingly.

  Işak drank wine from his pewter cup, grateful that he’d finally gotten his hands under control, even if his insides still writhed. He eyed the Saldarian leader over the rim. “What else?”

  Raliax shrugged. “There wasn’t much to it. Take the Dawn Chaser off the coast of M’Nador. Question the prince to see what he knew. Kill him. Fire the ship…we did all of that. The royal family assumed the Dawn Chaser foundered in a storm.”

  Işak stared wordlessly at him. There was just no questioning it. Gydryn val Lorian could not have blamed him for Trell’s death. Işak was already in N’ghorra when Raliax did the deed. Where then had such an idea come from?

  Işak pushed away these confusing truths, which seemed to be accompanied by a blinding pain in his head and an ill feeling of foreboding in his stomach. He refocused on Raliax to find the man staring at him. “Where has the prince been all this time?” he wondered aloud.

  Raliax shrugged. “Where he’s been ain’t as important as where he’s going. I’ll make sure he’s dead this time.”

  Işak arched a brow. “I rather think that a mistake of grave proportion.”

  “You think—” Inexplicably, Raliax exploded on him. “You can barely ride a horse with that gimp leg! What do you know of a man’s work? I’d like to see you in a real battle—I’ll bet you can’t even swing a blade!” He looked Işak over with malice in his dark eyes. “You’re naught but a madman’s plaything. What makes you think you’re better than me?”

  Benumbed and confused by the Saldarian’s sudden attack, Işak yet leveled Raliax a chilling gaze, for his words sheared close and cut deeply. “The prince has been somewhere for the past five years,” he pointed out to the fractious man. “Who has he told, and what has he told them? How many others know Prince Trell val Lorian walks among the living? An assassin whose marks mysteriously return from the dead is not long for this world.”

  “So I should kill him now!” Raliax declared as if to prove his own point.

  “You could, you could,” Işak agreed, marveling at the man’s unusual rancor. “But how many of Radov’s enemies know Trell val Lorian lives? And what will Radov say when he inevitably learns of it? I hear the ruling prince is not a trusting man. Think he'll believe you when you claim you killed the prince a second time?”

  Raliax frowned. It would seem even a man such as he could see this truth. Or perhaps his fear of Radov’s infamous paranoia was enough to give him pause. “So you’re saying what? I should take him to Radov?”

  “I would think so, yes, and in somewhat of a condition to answer the prince's questions.”

  Raliax glowered at him. “You mean alive.”

  “I mean alive and unharmed. It is not up to you or I to decide the fate of Trell val Lorian now. That boon lies in your master’s hands.”

  Raliax clearly saw the benefit in this notion; laying blame at the feet of another was ever the coward’s comfort. The Saldarian shoved hands in pockets and paced, muttering for a while. Then he stopped and glared at Işak again. “What will you do?”

  “Continue on as planned.”

  “So I travel hundreds of leagues overland while our Nodefinder takes you north in a matter of days?”

  “There was a Nodefinder among their party,” Işak pointed out. “If he lives, he could be of use t
o you. I recommend sending a man to Tal’Shira at once, that they might gain the capital before the Adept dies. Radov will surely send another Nodefinder back for you to claim such a prize as your miraculous prince.” When Raliax said nothing, Işak offered, “Or if you would prefer our roles are reversed and I take Trell val Lorian to present to Prince Radov instead—”

  “I’m not saying that!”

  Işak opened palms placatingly.

  “Should’ve left you to rot…” the man muttered acidly under his breath.

  “What was that?”

  He shot him a venomous glare. “I said, Dore Madden should’ve left you to rot in…wherever he found you.” He spun on his heel and stormed from the tent.

  Would that he had, Işak thought as he sat in his chair feeling worms crawling through the tatters of his soul. In N’ghorra, he’d at least been his own man—or so he liked to believe. The truth was he remembered too nearly those punishing years and too distantly the man who had endured them.

  N’ghorra was but the first level of hell, Işak lamented as he stared at his empty goblet, and I have since come to know them all.

  Dawn saw overcast skies and the illicit troop ready to be off. Most of the prisoners had spent the night tied to stakes near the horses, while the prince had been kept at the edge of camp under constant watch. When Işak emerged from his tent, pulling the cowl of his cloak low over his eyes, he saw the prince sleeping with his back to his guards.

  The man compelled his interest. Işak had barely been able to get his mind off of him, in fact. Leaving the Saldarians to break down his tent, Işak approached Trell. As he neared, he grew certain that the prince was alert, though for all purposes he seemed soundly asleep. “Go find Joss,” Işak told the two mercenaries guarding Trell.

  They headed off without a backward glance—all the better, for Işak felt unusually ill at ease that morning. When they were alone, Işak told the prince, “You’re being taken to Radov.”