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

by McPhail, Melissa

  He faced a massive stone chamber whose vaulted ceiling disappeared in shadows. Two rows of square stone columns supported the ceiling beams, and each side of every column sported a different banner five times the length of a man. Gigantic hearths on each wall warmed the subterranean room, while ringed chandeliers illuminated the length of the great chamber.

  Between each column, along the walls, faceless statues twice as tall as a man wore stylized, oversized armor representing a host of countries and kingdoms, each one sporting a different weapon frozen in its killing blow.

  Closest to him, Kjieran saw a knight in gold plate armor with a red axe embedded in his helmet. Further down, a statue wearing a hauberk and surcoat emblazed with a kingly crest stood with a black-feathered bolt through his blank eye, while a statue resplendent in a gold lamellar cuirass under a violet desert robe stood with arms thrown back and three wicked, seven-pointed stars buried in its chest. Countless other suits of armor stood forever trapped in their own dramatic moment of death, but Kjieran lost interest in them the moment his eyes fell upon the tapestry at the end of the room.

  Hanging from ceiling to floor, the tapestry covered the entire rear wall. Fifty horses might’ve stood upon its midnight-black wool with room to spare. In the center of the tapestry, sewn with millions of spools of thread-of-silver, shone the three-daggered crest of the Assassin’s Guild.

  Kjieran managed a dry swallow.

  Hooded men crowded the room. Notably, none of them wore weapons—at least none that could be seen—though Kjieran felt this only made them more dangerous. He gratefully released his pattern of illusion in favor of the simple hood—he feared he’d held the pattern too long as it was and worried hal’Jaitar would see the working upon the currents.

  As he pulled the hood down around his face, it occurred to him that Dore had irrevocably changed his life pattern. With a grim smile, Kjieran realized he might not even have a life pattern any longer.

  In any event, tracing the currents would take time. Kjieran merely prayed it would be enough.

  At least two hundred guild members strolled the vast room, milling and talking in small groups as they drank their wine, perhaps making alliances, or breaking them. Yet for so many people, the hall remained eerily quiet. Kjieran kept one eye pinned on his spy, whose chequered keffiyeh peeked out from beneath his black hood, one corner and a line of white fringe just visible at his back. The man walked through the crowd intently, his thoughts a jumble of fractious censure.

  Kjieran walked behind him listening intently to the room at large, both with ears and mind. Many men he passed had walled their thoughts behind strong patterns of protection, and Kjieran marked these men as wielders. Such men were trained to keep one eye on their back and another on the currents that they might perceive when someone was working elae nearby. He gave them a wide berth.

  Blue-robed servants in half-masks of dazzling silver carried trays offering an array of varied refreshments. One such bowed to him, and he felt obliged to take the crystal goblet of wine the man offered. But he did not drink from it, and he set it down again at the first opportunity, lest his twitching hands rouse the curiosity of this sharp-eyed congregation.

  Very quickly, however, Kjieran realized he would have to work some kind of illusion to disguise himself. A truthreader would never be admitted into this company, and his eyes would give him away the moment he met another’s gaze. He grew ever more uneasy, his need to find out what the spy knew now urgent.

  The man walked about ten paces ahead of Kjieran, looking relaxed now, even casual, often nodding to others he passed. He was one in two hundred black hoods, but Kjieran could not mistake him. Even had his keffiyeh remained hidden, his thoughts gave him away. This in itself told Kjieran much. Spies were trained to control their thoughts—even na’turna learned how to quiet their minds. For the man to shout loudly his master’s name into the aether, he must be agitated indeed.

  Just then the spy stopped and turned to a man approaching from the other side of the room. It took a moment before Kjieran realized it was hal’Jaitar, for he was equally hooded, but his was a distinctive walk. It was the gait of a man who believe he owned the world.

  Kjieran needed to get closed to hear their conversation, but they stood in the middle of the hall. He could not call upon his pattern of concealment, for there were no shadows to blend into.

  Quickly summoning a different pattern, Kjieran joined a group of four men standing within earshot of hal’Jaitar and his spy. The fourth-strand pattern he used was layered with form and very difficult to hold in place. It made each of the four men think Kjieran was one of the others while never noticing a fifth had actually joined their number. Kjieran had not worked it in many years and had never been very good at it to begin with, but he could think of nothing else to conceal himself from hal’Jaitar’s piercing observation.

  As he concentrated on holding the pattern and shifted closer to the spy, Kjieran heard hal’Jaitar hiss under his breath, “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in Tambarré?”

  “Events move quickly,” the spy answered in an equally low voice, his accented words muffled by the long drape of his hood. Kjieran couldn’t quite place his accent, though it sounded eastern—perhaps of Vest. “Dore sent Raliax’s crew, with me among them, to assist his puppet wielder in Rethynnea, the one you told me to watch.”

  “He what?” Hal’Jaitar hissed a curse in the desert tongue, a spiteful, vicious oath full of rancor. “What was he thinking putting the two of them together? By the foul testicles of Belloth,” he snarled with acid rebuke, “I vow that lunatic cannot discern between advancement in the name of progress and experiments that do naught but provide frottage for his engorged ego. It is the pinnacle of foolishness—what if the puppet remembers something? No patterns are so foolproof they cannot be unraveled by a wielder of greater power!”

  “There’s more,” remarked the spy significantly.

  Hal’Jaitar drew back, seeming ever the viper rearing to strike. “More,” he repeated darkly. “What more?”

  “Raliax and Işak’getirmek are on the hunt for the youngest prince, Ean val Lorian. They captured some of his men in a coup aiming for the cousin Fynnlar, son of Prince Ryan, but they found another instead.”

  “Who?”

  “Trell val Lorian.”

  Kjieran nearly lost hold of his pattern and grappled mentally to reclaim it. It was just the slightest hitch, the tiniest infraction in his control of elae, yet it was enough to catch the attention of hal’Jaitar, who turned and looked directly at Kjieran’s group.

  Kjieran held his position. He knew he seemed but one more hood among the many, but inside he was frantic. Hal’Jaitar stared in his direction a harrowing few breaths more, but his own business became more pressing. “You’re certain it was the prince,” hal’Jaitar murmured, returning his gaze back to his spy.

  “I would not have come otherwise. I’m expected to bring a Nodefinder back to the camp to retrieve Raliax and the prince. ‘Getirmek and the rest continued on, following the original plan.”

  “Raliax is bringing Trell to the palace?” Hal’Jaitar grabbed the spy’s shoulder. “With Gydryn val Lorian veritably in the next room?”

  “’Getirmek said Radov would want to know what the prince knows, where’s he’s been, who else knows he lives.”

  “A far number too many!” hal’Jaitar hissed. Then he abruptly collected himself. “Of course—of course, he must bring him to Radov…but this poses new complications.” He cursed foully again and then pinned his spy with a vituperative glare. “What did the prince say? Where has he been all this time?”

  “’Getirmek questioned him. I didn’t hear his answers.”

  “Unfortunate…but we shall have our chance. And Işak’getirmek himself?” hal’Jaitar inquired then, searching the spy’s eyes with his own icy onyx gaze, “how did he react to the news?”

  “He seemed a little…off after learning the prince’s name, but the man is always off,”
and here he shrugged.

  “Yes, he has too much of Dore Madden in his head,” hal’Jaitar agreed. “It seems at least the fourth-strand patterns upon him are holding. Well and good.” His piercing gaze strayed once again across Kjieran’s group, who were just then dispersing. Kjieran decided he’d overstayed his welcome and moved off as well.

  But he was reeling.

  Trell lives!

  It was too monumental to think upon—Kjieran needed all his wits about him or he would lose his hold on elae. He dared not risk losing the lifeforce amid such a deadly crowd, not with hal’Jaitar alert to someone working nearby. He quietly sought the safety of the shadows and released his pattern, but he kept elae close. All the while he walked toward the doors, he kept his eyes downcast and his twitching hands hidden within his cloak. If only his heart had still functioned, it would’ve been beating furiously. As it was, he felt as if every hair upon his body stood on end, he was so electrified by the news.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” said a man suddenly from behind. “Or have we?”

  Kjieran nearly missed a step at the sound of hal’Jaitar’s voice so close in his ear. He had no idea of the protocol among this group, whether any of them acknowledged each other or how they knew friend from foe. He kept walking, but the door and escape seemed suddenly miles away.

  Kjieran felt Hal’Jaitar working the fourth. He sensed it even as he was certain hal’Jaitar knew he was equally holding elae.

  “I asked you a question,” the wielder hissed, grabbing for Kjieran’s wrist.

  Kjieran reflexively felt his hand twitch, felt the Prophet’s chill power leap out of his palm, leap for hal’Jaitar as lightning seeks the its highest point. The wielder hissed a curse and released Kjieran with a violent jerk.

  Kjieran urgently called the shadows around him and bolted for the doors.

  He careened through a group who were just then departing, pushing several out of his way in his haste. He heard hal’Jaitar shouting an alarm and knew he had a precious few seconds left to escape. For once the wielders in the crowd were alerted, his simple patterns would be shattered as easily as glass upon a rock.

  He pushed clear of the group at the doors and stumbled into the antechamber. Two men were just then leaving through a one of the portals. Kjieran drew heavily upon elae, as much of the lifeforce as he could handle. He made his pattern completely solid and headed toward them—

  And the Prophet’s eye opened upon him.

  Perhaps it was his use of elae resonating back through the bond to the Prophet, or perhaps it was just ill chance, but Kjieran felt Bethamin’s awareness pouring into him with all new force. The power exploded in his brain. He staggered, just paces from the portal and escape, conscious only of the agony of the Prophet’s fury.

  KJIERAN, WHAT IS THIS YOU DO?

  The world was a blur. Kjieran realized he’d lost elae completely, that others were staring at him as he stumbled haphazardly around the room.

  Danger, my lord! Kjieran gasped in mental reply, only praying somehow the Prophet might understand his frantic, jumbled thoughts. He careened into a wall and nearly fell, for the Prophet’s demand in his mind was all-encompassing, all-possessing, a blazing force that eradicated thought.

  In the main chamber, men were yelling. The doors burst open, and Kjieran knew that hal’Jaitar would be leading the assault.

  My lord, I’m in terrible danger!

  The Prophet flooded into Kjieran’s mind at once, seeing what he saw, understanding…calculating. His mental presence was the sacred blood and Kjieran the blessed chalice for his will. It was not communication, it was communion, and Kjieran became powerless save as the vessel of his master’s intent.

  Kjieran felt a great blast of power burst out of him, thunder without sound. He was the resounding gong, sending waves of energy rebounding against the walls. The men nearest him fell beneath the onslaught, but hal’Jaitar and his wielders shielded themselves, standing their ground if with difficulty. Wearing Kjieran’s shell, the Prophet turned to the nearest door and splintered it with a look. He cast Kjieran forth like a marionette stumbling into the depths of the tunnel, and all around him as Kjieran ran, the rock shattered, lamps exploded, and every step left a dent in the stones beneath his feet.

  Kjieran ran for a very long time.

  The Prophet was still compelling him when he burst forth from a final door into a dark alley somewhere in the city.

  WHERE?

  Kjieran could barely think, barely focus, but he managed a meager picture of the ocean. The cliffs were the safest place to hide, for the elemental forces of sea and wind diffused the currents. The Prophet turned him east and drove him on.

  Kjieran finally collapsed upon the sand of a deep sea cave. He’d swum through the surf, tumbled in the battering waves and been all but shattered upon the rocks. The Prophet was controlling his body with the abandon of an immortal whose will stood unquestioned by the elements. He could naught but comply.

  Finally, there upon the damp and clinging sand, the Prophet withdrew, leaving Kjieran ragged and spent, his will broken. He’d felt violated all during the Prophet’s possession and then horribly vacant once he’d gone. For all that Kjieran despised his lord in so many ways, yet the man’s force of being was godlike, and no mortal might commune intimately with a god and not be left lacking upon separation. He lay for a long time staring dully into the darkness, realizing that his body needed neither breath nor sustenance, unable even to cry for all that had been taken from him. He felt utterly, completely empty.

  He was still lying there, numb with hopelessness, when—

  He was suddenly no longer in Tal’Shira.

  Instead, he lay within the Prophet’s torch-lit chambers, those vastly cold and impersonal rooms where Kjieran had so often been called in the dark of night, each time fearing it would be his end, each time somehow narrowly avoiding the sweeping arm of death. He pushed up on his hands, dumbfounded, trying to understand what had just happened. Had the Prophet actually moved him so instantaneously, or was this some kind of illusion?

  “Kjieran.” The Prophet’s deep voice thundered through him, bringing ice to his veins, setting his pulse alive.

  He scrambled to his knees and looked around, only to immediately press his forehead to the floor in reverent greeting.

  The Prophet stood in the portal between two chambers, ever impressive at nearly seven feet tall. His muscled chest and legs were bare, his loins draped with a rectangle of silk held with a gold chain caught low around his hips. The vastness of his presence filled every inch of the room and still could not be contained.

  “My lord,” Kjieran whispered, feeling his warm breath between his lips and the cold marble floor. No, this was definitely not real, for his breath no longer came at all in life. But what then was it?

  The Prophet approached, radiating fury. Kjieran felt the heat of it as the sun upon his back. Yet Bethamin’s anger was equally mingled with desire and uncertainty, each spirit intertwining without combining, a rotating flask of incompatible emotions.

  “I have found it difficult to gain your dreams,” the Prophet informed him. “Dore explained the nature of the bond may now prevent this medium but has instead engendered another.”

  Kjieran sat back on his heels, for he somehow knew the Prophet desired to look upon his face, yet he kept his colorless eyes downcast. “My lord,” he murmured as he watched the Prophet’s black-enameled toes come to stand before him. “Where are we?”

  “We stand in the antechamber of my mind.”

  Kjieran closed his eyes upon hearing this, for it was terrible to conceive—t’was little wonder the Prophet’s thoughts and emotions were so clear to him. Yet the sickening realization left him trembling, for there could be no escape from whatever nightmare the Prophet now dreamed, no release until Bethamin desired it.

  Kjieran wanted to cry, but tears were denied him now in life, and he doubted very much he would find them there, in the mind of the Prophet Bethami
n.

  “I ill approve of what occurred tonight, Kjieran.”

  Kjieran felt the cold wave of his displeasure crash over him, colder than the waves that had battered his real body only hours before. He trembled beneath their chill censure. “My lord,” he murmured wretchedly, “I can explain—”

  “Dore says I should take you in hand, Kjieran. He warns that without compulsion, you cannot be trusted.”

  “No, my lord!” Kjieran gasped, more horrified than ever by the threat. “I only ever serve you!”

  “How were you serving me tonight?”

  Kjieran stared hard at the marble floor. His eyes and throat burned with unshed tears, each one representative of a different fear. “Hal’Jaitar,” he managed weakly, “he works against you.”

  “Indeed,” murmured the Prophet, sounding dubious.

  “He has tried to kill me once already since I arrived in Tal’Shira and was attempting to do so again when you…when you came to me,” Kjieran stammered. “I did not know how to defend myself, and…and I—”

  “I felt you draw upon a foreign power.” Thunderous censure resounded in the Prophet’s tone. “I did not know elae was still yours to command.”

  Knowing the Prophet as well as he did, Kjieran saw that he had but one chance to save himself from the oblivion of compulsion. “Only…I think only because it bends to your will, my lord,” he whispered. “I do not understand how it has come to me.” It was a bold lie, but despite his truthreader’s nature, Kjieran waged no effort in saying it. A devastating truth to confront about his new existence.

  The Prophet stood silent for a moment, considering his argument. “You may be correct in this conclusion,” he finally replied, and some of the threat dissipated from his manner. “No power in this realm is denied me, and I am just beginning to explore the limits of our bond.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Kjieran whispered, repentant and contrite.

  How strange to find that there, in the Prophet’s mind, his heart still beat, his breath still came quickly in his chest, and he still felt the sting of unshed tears. Did the Prophet not understand that all of these experiences were now denied him? That the very pulse of life had been stripped away as like the withered flesh of his calves? Or did Bethamin merely choose to ignore this truth, perhaps enjoying more the fantasy of his own creation?