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

by McPhail, Melissa

  Men. They were such fragile creatures, really. Would that the First Lord was less enamored of them. His brothers, too, seemed woefully taken by some apparent charm that the races of man seemed to exude. Especially Náiir.

  Rhakar was not so duped, seeing humankind for the fleshly creatures they were—pale and mortal, frail, capable of enduring but the slightest variation in climate or temperature without expiring from one end of the spectrum or the other. He did not see their appeal, particularly.

  Oh…Ramu lectured tediously on the importance of humans as one of the Maker’s child-races, prattling on about how humankind was blessed with a simplicity that was inherently divine, and his sister Jaya conversed with inexhaustible patience, trying to help him see the value in their fragility. While Rhakar begrudgingly recognized some shadow of their Maker in the races of Man, this inherent divinity was so fleeting and long-derived—so distant in relationship—that he felt little compunction over harming the pitiful things when situation or Balance called for it. Mostly he enjoyed the diversion.

  This dark delight was another aspect of his name. The Shadow of the Light. Or so Jaya sermonized. She felt that their unique and true purpose for existence was to understand the deeper meanings of their names via exhaustive questioning and introspection—for each of them had been named specifically by their Maker. Jaya believed that in understanding their names, they might better understand the Maker’s will for their lives. She’d made a religion out of this idea and had spent centuries refining and codifying it into tomes of complex syllogism and symbolism.

  Rhakar could not have been less interested in her philosophy. He had his own philosophy. Find his quarry. Question it. Kill it.

  Simple.

  Look for Saldarians, Náiir had told him in their unique way of communicating across distance and even time, should the need arise. Find Trell.

  While he flew, Rhakar kept a tendril of the first strand burning in his awareness, both to lead him to things living and to alert him to Trell’s presence among them. Having found the man before, he would easily recognize his unique life pattern again, but Rhakar sensed it nowhere within the boundaries of his awareness—not even a trace upon the currents.

  Still, a strong emanation pulled him northward, a host of men and beasts. It seemed unlikely there would be one among them with the ability to hide Trell’s presence on the currents, but Rhakar would leave no trace uninspected, no clue uninvestigated, nothing to chance.

  He came upon the party from the south, and he hid from them in the face of the sun, careful to ensure his tell-tale shadow was likewise cast far from where they rode. There were a score of them at least, all ahorse, though four were bound, and one was unwell, bandaged and bloody.

  The rider in the lead appeared as any other, though on closer inspection, Rhakar sensed something of the second strand in him—a Nodefinder like as not.

  But the man dressed all in black riding just behind him was so bound with elae that the lifeforce clung to him. Indeed, the currents glommed in great sheets about his presence, clutching and binding only to be ripped from his person and carried forward again on their usual rushing path. The man was a boulder in the raging Cry, catching the flotsam of the river in constant storm.

  Rhakar was intrigued, and he sought to learn what patterns might engender such a reaction in the currents. However, the briefest inspection of the patterns layered upon the man so disgusted him that he quickly abandoned all interest. The man was lost, not long for this world.

  Among the others—Saldarians all, in Rhakar’s experienced estimation—Trell clearly was not.

  Which begged the question, where was he? No doubt one of these Saldarians could tell him—with the proper motivation.

  Rhakar inwardly smiled. The day was turning out to be interesting after all.

  He spent an idle while choosing which direction from which to best surprise them and then dove low, spearing down with lightning speed to level out just a handspan above a mountain ridge, close enough that his furnace breath stirred billowing dust. Yet this upsurge was but a tuft compared to the swirling storm of sand and dirt razed in his wake.

  He came at them from the west then, where the sun’s falling rays as yet speared fragile eyes, encouraging men to turn their gazes elsewhere, and he came at them fast, rising suddenly above the ridge to blanket them with his shadow and the radiant heat of his sun-scorched form.

  The men scattered in a panic, shouting and cursing, their horses rearing with screams of protest, a mad flutter of chaos. Trained soldiers tended to stand their ground—futilely perhaps, impotently to be sure, but with honor intact—but Saldarians routinely fled like cockroaches exposed to the daylight.

  As he rounded the ridge, Rhakar selected one of them, a squat rider ripe for the plucking. He twisted and dove with faultless aim, and his taloned feet snared the man, who screamed like speared pig. Rhakar clutched the man’s mortal body close to his belly, and then his powerful wings were pounding the air, climbing out of the ravine, rousing whipping torrents of dirt to impale and obscure the eyes of any who might dare some meager, if obviously inept, response.

  Thus he was startled when he felt a sudden shock of the fourth hit him from below. It was a powerful stroke, if harmless to him and strangely aimed, yet it drew his fiery gaze below as he flew away, interested to know its source. The man in black stared up at him through the swirling sand, unruffled, hands at his sides, and Rhakar named him now for what he was.

  A wielder, yet one of a strange and unnatural makeup.

  Curious. The briefest inspection of the pattern the wielder had worked showed Rhakar that the attack had not been aimed at him at all but at the man in his grasp. This earned the wielder some small shadow of respect, for it demonstrated intelligence and a cool head. It was a strong leader who, in the thick of attack, would think to prevent the enemy from learning their secrets by killing his own man—never mind that the attempt had failed. Still, the wielder clearly could not work the fifth, else he would’ve done so already. Rhakar gave him no more thought.

  He banked in the rising east wind and flew toward the southern cliffs, looking for one that offered a spot for landing. And interrogation. The man in his claws was whimpering, and Rhakar loosened his grip slightly. This seemed not to help much, for now the man screamed instead.

  As he soared over a crumbling ridge, Rhakar spied an outcropping of rock that offered ideal conditions for what he required. Ignoring the shrieking man in his grasp, he shifted his wings and headed for it.

  ***

  Sharpe swam in a world of pain.

  Pinned beneath the massive dragon, speared and bleeding, he whimpered in the rushing air, which beat across his skull with driving force, the wind coming so fast and hard he couldn’t even open his eyes. It seemed an interminable flight, every moment spent in agony, every breath a struggle through a chest and lung pierced by the dragon’s needle-like talon. Another claw impaled in his stomach, and a third passed through his thigh. Worse was the burning. This was the pain that kept him screaming. He wasn’t sure how it had happened—something powerful had blasted into him as the dragon was dragging him through the skies, some fiery vengeful force—and now he felt nothing but searing pain and emptiness where his feet should’ve been.

  When the creature finally set him down on the rough rock and withdrew his claws, Sharpe screamed anew, for he felt every inch of each talon as it slid languidly from his flesh.

  Lying on a slender ledge just inches from the cliff edge, Sharpe waited for death. The dragon hulked over him, so massive he couldn’t discern its shape, though he knew its barbed tail hovered near. Its wings still caught the wind as the beast settled, the sound a whirring rasp, a thousand snakes rushing through the dry grass. Sharpe felt sick. He looked up to find the beast staring at him, its golden eyes large in a body with scales of fire.

  Sharpe stared back in terror, choking on every breath.

  WHAT IS IT YOU DO IN THESE FORBIDDEN LANDS? demanded a voice unexpectedly in
to his mind. The intrusion felt as an anvil upon his brain, crushing in its power.

  Sharpe had no option but to answer—there was ne’er a defiant thought, for his mind was immediately dominated by the dragon’s will, like a fly pinned beneath a man’s finger.

  “Captives…” he gasped through lungs that refused to fill, through the fire that still seemed trapped in his shins, “…bait.”

  The dragon stared compellingly at him, and Sharpe closed his eyes rather than endure its fiery observation. A fit of bloody coughing choked him, and he prayed in each moment that it would be his last. Even knowing he was doomed…the experience of looking up into the dragon’s golden eyes, knowing the creature was clawing into his mind with some terrible magic—this was more frightening than any torment death could claim.

  WHERE IS THE ONE THEY CALL TRELL? came the dragon’s demand. I DID NOT SEE HIM AMONG THIS PARTY.

  The thought pounded into Sharpe’s skull with shattering force, and pain radiated through him like a jagged dagger dragging and grating along his bones.

  It was at least a minute before Sharpe realized the pathetic scream echoing hollowly in his broken ears was his own, and a minute more before he managed to stop. He had no idea how long it took before he fashioned his answer. Every moment was a terrorized agony in which all of his concerted effort was focused on forming that reply. He lived now merely to comply with the dragon’s command, his will completely seized by the powerful mind that held him in thrall.

  “M’Nador…” Sharpe finally gasped, a bare whisper. He realized in a sickly moment of clarity that what he’d thought was the red haze of sunset flaming the sky was actually his eyes hemorrhaging, and the echoic kettle-drum sound of the wind was due to his ears being equally filled with blood. The world spun wildly as he stared up at the dragon, its fiery eyes swimming and multiplying before his vision, and still the creature’s question demanded further answer—he felt it being drawn out of him as if hooked by lure and line. Drawing in a shuddering breath, Sharpe croaked in the last, “To Radov.”

  It may have been hours that he lay in broken agony then, praying for death, or mere seconds before the dragon granted his unspoken wish. But the beast at last opened its mouth upon him, and Sharpe cringed to the depths of his soul, expecting some flaming eruption that never came.

  Yet what he did find was far more terrifying.

  A sun burned within the dark, cavernous opening that was the dragon’s mouth. That’s why they call them Sundragons, Sharpe thought with a blood-filled cackle of insane laughter. He had time to look with scalded eyes upon the sun boiling in the dragon’s maw, time to feel his flesh begin to sear, crisp, and flake from the bone, and then his head exploded.

  ***

  Leaving the charred husk that had once been a man upon the lonesome cliff—for a drachwyr would never deign to eat a man—Rhakar drove his wings through the rising heat of late afternoon to regain the high skies where the air grew thin.

  He misliked what the man Sharpe had told him.

  Mithaya, he called, reaching out across the aether to find his sister’s life pattern upon the wavering strands of time, that substance which bound all realms together.

  Silence lengthened while the wind caressed his senses. Then came her reply—distant, faint.

  Rhakar…

  He told her his news, knowing she would reach Ramu and he in turn the First Lord. Then he contacted his brother Náiir with the same report.

  He might’ve returned to his patrol then, but something gnawed at him. He did not have the prescience of Balaji or the First Lord’s zanthyr, but Rhakar knew well when instinct spoke. He’d lived too many long centuries and endured too much to question that voice.

  So he tilted his wings and rode the turbulent desert currents back toward the valley and the unusual wielder who still snared his attention.

  ***

  Işak’getirmek shielded his blue-grey eyes with one hand and watched uneasily as the Sundragon disappeared over the ridge with a mindlessly screaming Sharpe in tow. Perhaps more troubling than the dragon’s inexplicable attack was the feeling that suffused him upon watching Sharpe agonizing in its grasp as the dragon was flying away.

  Vindication…

  Whyever did he feel vindicated in knowing that Sharpe was meeting his due? He recognized that the feeling had to do with Sharpe’s having put three darts into Fynnlar val Lorian. It was all backwards and wrong, and yet he could not deny the feeling.

  As the heavy thumping of the dragon’s wings faded into the distance, the Saldarians emerged from their places of hiding, albeit tentatively, suspiciously. Of the twenty in their company, only Işak had held his ground.

  His prisoners had used the moment to attempt an escape, which he’d quickly thwarted with a net of compulsion cast wide. They writhed in the dirt now, enduring his displeasure. Their untimely break had caused him to muddle his aim of the fourth-strand working he’d intended for Sharpe. Işak was fairly sure the bolt of concentrated energy had missed most of him, which meant…

  He wasn’t sure what it meant.

  The entire encounter baffled him.

  Joss finally managed to wriggle out from beneath the low ledge he’d hidden under and made his way through the chaos of scattered Saldarians to rejoin Işak. “Bloody ill-luck for Sharpe,” he said heatedly as he neared. “We’re naught but a sprint away from that node.”

  Işak slowly turned his gaze from the distant sky to look at him. Joss wore a layer of dirt that might’ve been from the dragon’s generated windstorm, or perhaps from having plastered himself beneath the sliver of a ledge. “Round up the men and horses,” he said tightly, still on edge. Işak’s own mount had reared on him the moment the dragon erupted over the mountainside, and with his bad leg, which made riding ever difficult, Işak had abandoned the steed—he’d dared not risk attempting to control a frightened horse amid twenty terrorized men while subduing four prisoners with compulsion and fighting a Sundragon. He knew his limitations.

  He cast Joss a sideways glance and added darkly, “And hurry up about it.”

  “Some of the men are hurt,” Joss grumbled, looking sullen. “Huric might’ve broken his leg. It should be set.”

  “Get him on his horse.” Işak speared him with a dangerous look.

  “Why?” Joss threw a hand to the sky. “The damnable beast is gone! It’s no doubt making a fine snack of Sharpe as we speak! What’s so bloody pressing?”

  Işak drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. What could he tell Joss? That Dore’s paranoia over anyone remotely related to the Fifth Vestal had engendered a need to teach Işak all possible spells to escape the Vestal or any of his liegemen? And that whoever else they may be sworn to, the Sundragons were sworn first to Björn van Gelderan?

  How could a man like Joss possibly understand the transference of knowledge that came with being bound to Dore Madden, how his insanities and understandings both filtered across the bond? Işak knew, because Dore knew, that a Sundragon would never stop until he had achieved his goal, and especially Şrivas’rhakárakek, which this most likely had been. Dore said Rhakar was almost always sent to do Björn’s work, though why the Fifth Vestal should care about Işak’s business was anyone’s guess.

  “Get the men ready,” Işak repeated, suddenly fearing that they’d already lingered too long. His gaze and tone simultaneously invited challenge and warned against such an ill-advised response.

  Joss gave him a look of sour accusation but turned to do as tasked.

  Işak looked back to the sky. He didn’t understand why the dragon had come. This more than anything made him uneasy. It hadn’t been to rescue the prisoners—the creature had patently disregarded them—and it hadn’t anything to do with him personally, for the dragon had all but ignored him even seeing he was a wielder. And despite all tales and Joss’s assumption to the contrary, Işak well knew that Sundragons would never feast upon the flesh of men. Thus he could only conclude that the dragon had come in search of Trell val Loria
n.

  Trell… Işak marveled at the mysteries that encircled the prince’s life. He wondered, too, if he would rue the day Trell crossed his path. But one thing was certain: the prince had the favor of a god—Raine’s truth, a god had already rescued him once from sure death in the Fire Sea. What lengths then would this god take to track him down again, and might it perhaps include sending a Sundragon in search?

  Nervous now at the possibility, Işak called up a first-strand pattern and cast it upon the currents. It occurred to him, as he began getting tentative readings back from the pattern’s ever-expanding reach, that this was very likely the same pattern the Sundragon had used to find them.

  Oh, he understood more than any man should about Sundragons. Dore had lectured tirelessly and with dreadful insistence about their talents and their weaknesses… especially their weaknesses, which were few enough in Dore’s estimation to count on one hand. But one thing Dore had stressed time and again was that Sundragons could not travel the nodes. If the dragon returned—and Işak’s gut told him it would—he had to buy them time to escape.

  Joss was just approaching with Işak’s mount in tow when Işak felt a mental tug, his first-strand pattern resonating strongly. He’d been right to fear. The dragon was returning.

  “Get Waryn to prepare the node for travel,” he hissed in a low voice as he took his reins from Joss. “And tell him he’d better be bloody quick about it!”

  Joss looked alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

  Işak gave him a black look. “The dragon returns.”

  “Belloth’s bloody balls! What do we do?”

  “You get the men across the node.” Işak looked back to the sky and added grimly, “…I will deal with the dragon.”

  “What do you mean you’ll deal with it?” He grabbed Işak’s arm. “Don’t be a fool! No man can fight a Sundragon!”

  “I can fight him,” Işak said evenly, holding his gaze.

  Joss frowned and released him—he was never comfortable touching Işak anyway. “As you will then,” he said, sounding dubious, his frustration evident in tone and manner. “But what—?”