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

by McPhail, Melissa

  After a moment of silence, Trell asked, “Why? Because he tried to have me killed?”

  For reasons unknown even to himself, Işak confirmed this by answering, “So it would seem.” He peered curiously at the prince then, seeing only a sleeping man in the dim shadows of dawn. He laid a fourth-strand truth pattern upon him as he asked, “Tell me…how did you survive?”

  After a moment’s pause, the prince answered, “A god took pity on me.”

  Though it was an outrageous claim, Işak believed him—even had the fourth-strand pattern not resonated, there was an element of such naked honesty in the blunt, if improbable, answer that he could not but trust to it.

  Would that your benevolent god had seen fit to spare me as well, prince of Dannym.

  It was a strange thought that came so suddenly…another’s man’s thought. He had been another man once, before N’ghorra, but he no more remembered that man than he understood why Gydryn val Lorian had sent him to the mines—

  Immediately that shattering headache burst through his consciousness, throbbing and fierce, bringing a painful sharpness to his thoughts.

  Why?

  What could be happening to him that certain thoughts were accompanied by these pains, as if to ward him away from following their memory too deeply, from tracing them to their core? If not for his sure certainty that bindings of the fifth could never be broken, Işak might’ve speculated that Dore’s patterns were coming undone.

  But hope had long abandoned Işak, and he never wondered.

  Joss’s scuffing boot-steps preceded him through the quiet dawn. “You wanted me, Işak?”

  Işak kept his eyes pinned on Trell as he ordered, “Take five men and find Fynnlar val Lorian. I want to be well on our way to Saldaria by nightfall.”

  Joss nodded and headed off.

  “Saldaria,” Trell murmured. “Where you plan to lay a trap for my brother?”

  Işak wondered why he felt so compelled to interact with this prince, his prisoner, a man who should already be dead and likely would be very soon.

  When Işak said nothing, Trell turned his head to look up at him.

  In holding the man’s gaze—even from the shadows of his hood—Işak became acutely aware of the scar that marred his features and did not want Trell to look upon it. He was glad for the deep cowl of his cloak to collect and contain the concealing darkness.

  Trell looked at him with serious, wolf-grey eyes, his brow furrowed as his gaze took in Işak’s hooded face, his form. He paused when he noted Işak’s left hand, half-concealed by the long fall of his cloak, working its string into silent knots, and his frown deepened. After a moment of consideration, Trell lifted eyes to stare up at him again.

  “Why do you serve such men as Radov abin Hadorin and the Prophet Bethamin? You’re not like them.”

  “You know nothing of me,” Işak murmured. He felt scalded by the prince’s perceptions and confusingly wished they could be true.

  “No,” Trell agreed, frowning slightly. “I don’t, do I…and yet…”

  Işak hung painfully upon that pause.

  “…I feel as if I should.”

  Stricken by the words, Işak turned away from him, feeling unbalanced. He noticed that his hands were shaking again and cursed his own foolishness, for the truth was…he felt the same way about Trell.

  Işak left the prince in haste then, walking purposefully through the camp to disguise the ill feelings that haunted him. But he wondered, Why did a god spare your life, Trell val Lorian? What made you so special? And behind these thoughts, so faint as to be nearly nonexistent, repeated another whispering plea, Why did He not see fit to spare me as well?

  A part of Işak wished he could take the prince back to Tal’Shira, but he knew the compulsion patterns laid upon him would never let him diverge from his assigned task, and a passing interest in a northern prince was not worth the incapacitating infirmity that resulted from attempts to fight Dore’s will.

  Still…

  It was full daylight before Joss returned, and his expression and lack of a seventh member to their retinue did not bode well for his success. He jumped from his horse and stalked over to the prince. “You!” he snarled, kicking at Trell. He yanked him to his knees by his hair and shouted, “Where’s your cousin?”

  The commotion drew Işak from his own pursuits, and he closed upon the scene as Trell sat staring up at Joss, his storm-grey gaze unyielding. Işak saw great strength in the prince for all he could hardly be twenty and three. “Your man put three darts into my cousin,” Trell told him coolly. “That’s the last I saw of him.”

  Joss spun to Işak as he neared. “Make him tell the truth!”

  “I believe he just did,” Işak replied. “The problem seems to be your dull-witted questioning.”

  While Joss glowered, Işak inquired from safely within the shadows of his hood, “And after Sharpe damaged your cousin? Then what? Did you help him in some way?” He made sure his compulsion-pattern was fully upon the prince before he finished this question.

  Trell cast him a defiant look, and Işak could see him fighting it—amazingly, it took the entire force of his own will to hold the pattern upon him!—but in the end, Trell gasped out through gritted teeth, “Fled—with—a Healer.”

  “Ah yes, the Healer.” Işak had forgotten about her—they all had—so focused they’d been on gaining the prince’s cousin. But the Guild Master in Rethynnea had reported to the Karakurt that a Healer would also be traveling with Fynnlar val Lorian.

  “Shite!” Joss snarled. He slung Trell back down and set to stomping and cursing. That’s when Raliax finally joined them, looking ill-humored and unusually unkempt, as if the harlot Sleep had been both teasing and denying him all night. “A bloody Healer took Fynnlar val Lorian away!” Joss shouted to Raliax by way of explanation for his tantrum.

  Işak meanwhile looked to Trell in disbelief as the prince pushed back to his knees. “So you, heir to the Eagle Throne…you stayed with your men to divert us that your wounded cousin and a simple Healer might escape? How terribly…noble.”

  Raliax spouted a stream of curses. “We’ll never find them now! Should’ve been after them last night!” and he cast Işak a glare full of venomous accusation.

  “Yes, no doubt last night in the pitch dark you and your men would’ve proven more effective at eliminating your quarry than you have in the past,” Işak returned, turning to pin the man with his shadowed gaze. “And tell me, how many other princes have you slain who will soon be coming back to life?”

  Though it was a simple slight, Raliax recoiled at the words.

  “We’ll just tell Ean val Lorian we have him anyway,” Joss offered hastily.

  “If we say we have the cousin when we do not,” Işak replied, “and by some good fortune, or perhaps the Healer’s skill, the cousin survives Sharpe’s darts and turns up elsewhere, this will call into question the validity of our hand.”

  “Afraid of a lie?” Raliax sneered. “Worried it will sully that ego of yours?”

  Işak looked to him curiously. His strange barbs seemed better aimed at another man. Something deeper than a wounded ego had to be bothering him—indeed, Işak sensed a simmering resentment that seemed to have come from nowhere, yet must’ve been building for years.

  “A lie, when wielded properly, can find its mark truer than any blade,” Işak replied to Raliax, “but when used improperly is about as useful as a spoon in a swordfight.”

  Raliax rounded on him again, coming nose to nose. “You think you’re so high and mighty,” he hissed, his breath foul and reeking of drink. “But when it comes down to the end of things, you’re no better than me.”

  “No, I am far worse,” Işak agreed, his bitter tone betraying but a hint of the tragedy that was his life.

  Raliax growled in frustration. “Do what you like,” he snarled then, waving a brusque hand. “Ean val Lorian is your problem now.” He looked to the assembled men who were going with him. “Bring a horse for our r
emarkable Prince Trell, back from the dead—and make ready! We head for Tal’Shira.”

  “And us for Saldaria,” Işak told Joss. “Get the other prisoners. We’ll leave the cousin to Fate.”

  As the men were dispersing, Trell lifted his gaze back to Işak. Even dirtied and bound, he displayed a grave dignity. “Why do you hide your face from me?” he asked quietly, the slightest tightening of his grey-eyed gaze the only hint that the question troubled him.

  Why do you know so completely that I do?

  “Farewell, prince of Dannym,” Işak said, turning away. He could no longer bear conversing with the man, for the prince’s presence filled him with an uncommon ache. “I do not think we shall meet again.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Trell murmured, and when Işak swung a sharp look over his shoulder, he saw that the prince was smiling.

  Forty-Five

  “Give me wine or give me death—I prefer the wine.”

  - The royal cousin Fynnlar val Lorian

  Alyneri rode with fear as her closest companion. At first, she and Fynn had made haste to put as much distance between them and their attackers as possible, but once the danger of pursuit was past, they’d adopted a slower pace. All the while, Alyneri rode with one eye over her shoulder, hoping at every new junction, turn, or trail that Trell would be there, hale and smiling, waiting for her.

  Gendaia seemed to sense unerringly which direction to take among the frighteningly labyrinthine canyons—indeed, the horse refused to follow any of Alyneri’s commands if they involved changing from her own course. It hardly seemed possible, but over time Alyneri began to trust that the horse actually knew where she was going. It gave her hope that perhaps she would find help…that she hadn’t lost Trell forever. And Alyneri really needed that hope.

  Fynnlar hung on by a thread. They stopped frequently during the interminable night so Alyneri could heal what she could of his life pattern and force him to drink some water, but she dared not remove the pronged darts that impaled his flesh.

  The clock was ticking, and Alyneri felt an ever-increasing panic. She was Fynn’s only hope. She might be Trell’s only hope. Worst of all was that they’d been separated with a rift still between them.

  When dawn finally came, Gendaia tread a high road out of the gorge. All around, the Kutsamak spread, a mottled, forbidding maze of shadowed canyons and stark, jagged ridges, their crumbling edges illuminated in the glaring light of morning. Alyneri had no idea where they were and no idea how long they would have to keep going, and she feared with every breath that Trell would not come.

  Between the strain of gnawing fears and pouring everything she had into strengthening Fynn’s pattern, Alyneri could barely keep her eyes open. More disheartening still, it seemed that each new footfall of sunlight across the mountains stole away a second more of Fynn’s life. Only her regular ministrations were keeping his heart beating, but once his blood had fully shed, there would be nothing else she could do.

  Alyneri spared another glance at him. He looked bad. Blood made a dark stain of his clothes, soaked down his horse’s flank and left a trail in the dust and the bitter rock.

  Pulling gently for Gendaia to halt, Alyneri slipped out of the saddle intending to check on Fynn again, but as her foot touched the earth, a great dizziness cast blackness across her vision and brought a threatening nausea. She daren’t try another healing then, not without food or rest; yet one look at Fynn told her that he wouldn’t live to see another sunrise.

  Alyneri gripped her saddle until the world no longer spun dangerously. Then she took her canteen over to Fynn. She hadn’t thought him conscious, but he whispered, “Fine,” as she reached his side.

  “You are not fine.”

  He murmured, “Just…a scratch.”

  Alyneri gave him a sip of water while regarding him with gratitude and admiration. She’d never been more grateful for the levity Fynn could be counted on to provide. “I think all that wine you’ve consumed must be acting as an embalming agent. Anyone else would’ve given up seven canyons ago.”

  “Want…see…dragon,” he whispered. He took another sip of water, but pushed her hand away after that.

  The sun cleared the mountains in that moment, and the heat came with it. Blinking in the suddenly over-bright morning, Alyneri stripped Fynn of his cloak and sorted through his pack until she found a linen tunic the right size for her needs. With a bit of rope tied in a rose knot—the specific knot used in the traditional Kandori agal circlets—she fashioned Fynn a keffiyeh to protect his head and neck.

  Then she did the same for herself using a long scarf she’d found among Trell’s packs. With nothing else to be done to help Fynn, Alyneri took up her reins. But as she placed her hands on her saddle, the moment became too intense, her fear too acute. She dropped her chin to her chest and forced a shuddering inhale, trying desperately not to cry. Her hands shook terribly. She was exhausted and frightened, and there seemed no hope of a favorable outcome.

  It took a few agonizing minutes to pull herself together—minutes Fynn probably didn’t have and which she berated herself about afterwards—but at last she swallowed enough of her despair to push herself on, set a foot into the stirrup and remounted.

  Alyneri shook out her hands as if to disperse the fear that gripped her and took up her reins as she looked grimly to Fynn. “We have to keep going.”

  He made the barest of nods in acknowledgment, and they set off again.

  It was a very long day.

  They rested for a time during the height of the day in the shade of an overhanging rock, and when not resting, Alyneri tried to travel in the shadows as much as possible. But this was the Kutsamak—the ochre walls were naught but shale and crumbling sandstone, and their sheer sides offered little relief from the ruthless sun.

  Still, she did what she could. She drank all of her water and ate what she could find among their packs, and she stopped often to make Fynn drink. Whenever she came upon a stream that still flowed, she rested there while the horses drank and tried to put a little life back into Fynn with whatever of her own she could spare. When Fynn started drifting in and out of consciousness, she tied him to his saddle with a combination of rope from their packs and torn strips of cloth and took up his reins herself, looping them about her own pommel.

  And ever she pressed back a continuous thrumming fear, an unvarying wave of grief. The enemy of exhaustion required constant vigilance, but her own mind posed a bigger adversary still. Who were those men? What had they wanted? Had they been coming for Trell or another of their company? And had any of her dear friends lived through it?

  She didn’t know how she survived that second night. Perhaps she slept, miraculously staying in her saddle. All she knew was that the hours of darkness blurred together until, with the paling of dawn, she looked up to find Gendaia standing in the shadow of Jar’iman Point.

  Abruptly she jerked awake.

  She spun a look at Fynn, who was slumped in his saddle, and grabbed for his wrist. After a harrowing few seconds, she detected a faint and feeble pulse, as well as the barest rise and fall of his chest.

  Relieved that Fynn had stayed with her through the night, Alyneri looked around again, trying to get her bearings…trying to understand why Gendaia had inexplicably stopped. The trail looked much like any other they’d followed thus far, an arid expanse of sun-baked rocks and dry earth too long deprived of nourishment. Her eyes were just scanning an outcropping of rock when a shadow befell it. Alyneri shaded her eyes with one hand and lifted her gaze to the eastern sky.

  An immense dragon flew between her and the sun—she wagered it must’ve boasted a hundred paces from nose to tail. Bathed in the backlight of the early morning sun, the outline of its hide flamed a brilliant gold nearly too bright to look upon.

  Abruptly Alyneri dove for Trell’s blade. She understood now why he’d given her his horse, his weapon. Trell had told her once that the drachwyr could see the smallest details from great distances. Sh
e struggled to pull the weapon free of its scabbard and then used both hands to wave it back and forth in the air, murmuring, “Please…oh please…”

  At last the dragon flew toward her, passing close, a creature of grave beauty and ferocity both. It buffeted her with the rising tide of heat from its wings, banked in solitary silence, and headed back the way it had come.

  Alyneri lowered Trell’s blade to her lap with shaking arms and exhaled a shuddering breath. A host of new fears sprouted as she watched the Sundragon flying away. But what had she expected? That the creature would relinquish the form, perhaps in a geyser of light as Gwynnleth was wont to do, and come to her immediate rescue?

  Well…yes. That’s apparently what she’d hoped for.

  It was agonizing watching the dragon retreat into the distance. Her heart caught in her throat, her chest constricted with breath that refused to come...

  “…dragon…” Fynn murmured.

  Alyneri turned him a startled look.

  Beneath a grimace of pain, Fynn was grinning.

  Ever grateful for Fynn’s remarkable spirit, Alyneri pulled out her flagon and gave him another sip of water, which was all he could manage, and then laid her hands upon his head. She’d barely the energy even to find his pattern again. Elae felt slippery in her grasp. Every time she reached for it, stinging nettles speared her eyes and needles pierced her brain, but she forced herself to ignore these warning signs through sheer obstinacy and finally held elae again.

  Once she had hold of the lifeforce, she searched for Fynn’s pattern and did what she could to smooth the frayed edges of his pattern, which was deteriorating at an alarming rate.

  Releasing elae and Fynn’s head in the same moment, Alyneri paid painfully for her efforts. Her head exploded with a viselike throbbing, and she drew in a desperate gasp and swooned in the saddle. She caught both hands on the pommel, hunched over, until the violent, swimming blackness before her vision cleared and Gendaia’s mane came back into view. It was a frightening moment while her heart raced and her mind fought frantically to retain its hold on consciousness.