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

by McPhail, Melissa

  Ean spared a startled glance for her, narrowly dodging a blade in the doing. In that moment, he saw her cast a man spinning with one end of her staff and then strike another across the back, sending him flying. Ean recognized the cortata in her movements and cursed himself for not calling upon it sooner.

  But he amended this error at once. The cortata brought clarity, and the lifeforce renewed and revitalized him. He worked meticulously through the mass of Saldarians then, clearing the way. When at last he lowered his dripping blade, two-dozen men lay in varying states of demise. Some sprawled unconscious, many labored with their final breaths. But there had been others who’d gotten away.

  Himself breathing hard, Ean looked to Isabel. She was kneeling beside one of the fallen with her hand across his face, reading him before he passed. Ean couldn’t recall if he’d known before this night that she could work the fourth strand as easily as she worked the first and second. No wonder Rhakar and Ramu hadn’t feared for them in this action! It wasn’t one wielder storming the castle. It was two.

  Isabel’s lips pursed in a thin line, and she rose and settled her staff two-handed before her toes.

  Ean frowned at her stance. “What is it?”

  Just then a distant horn sounded. The alarm raised.

  Isabel turned her blindfolded gaze to Ean. “Go. Find him.”

  Ean felt an immediate and extreme protest at the idea of leaving her side.

  “We cannot do what must be done here if we stay together,” she reasoned, knowing too well his mind. “You feel it too, Ean—the pervasive sense of wrongness in this place. It is the call of Balance seeking to be righted.”

  Ean made to protest, but she pushed three fingers across his lips. “Cephrael calls you to arms, my love. Can you not hear his war cry?”

  As much as he wanted to argue with her, he knew she guided him true. That throbbing wrongness had been accosting him ever since he set foot upon this path. But if he failed in whatever was to come… Conflict raged across his features.

  “Love of my heart,” Isabel murmured as the horn blew again, “you know the way.” She took up her staff and spun it before her as if readying to strike him if he did not leave at once.

  Ean rather imagined she would do it, too. He gave her one last look and ran.

  ***

  As Ean’s running steps faded, Isabel walked among the bodies at her feet. The long hem of her dress brushed the limbs of the dead as if paying final respects, the echo of a sweeping evergreen bough as conducted in the ancient and sacred Rite for the Departed.

  Elae fueled Isabel’s vision, as ever it had, revealing a shimmering world of iridescence. She saw walls and men illuminated not by light but by the varied, pastel-hued strands of the lifeforce. The otherwise dim hallways appeared to her in a golden sheen, the sputtering lamps glowing luminous as the moon. Only the men at her feet were diminished, some by the blackness of their souls, others by death’s encroaching shadow.

  Stepping carefully among the fallen, Isabel came upon one whose life-pattern still shone brightly. Here was a man who could be saved—the threads of his life rewoven to serve a higher purpose. Kneeling at his side, Isabel placed her palm to his chest in the Healer’s way. Elae surged through her and into him, channeling along his life-pattern in obeisance of her will.

  A moment later, his eyes flew open and he gasped, “My lady!”

  “Dorn,” Isabel murmured. “We have work to do.” She extended her hand to help him to his feet, and they set off together.

  ***

  The prince rushed through Tyr’kharta toward the upper levels of the castle where he sensed the wielder waiting.

  He had the man in his sights now. His life-pattern appeared as a strangely wavering image among the first-strand pattern Ean worked, a ghostly apparition barely glimpsed, a seeming mirage.

  Ean understood what Rhakar had meant when he’d spoken of the man, for the fourth strand of elae bound the wielder so completely that Ean could barely see him at all. Yet there was no missing his presence on the currents—elae snarled and eddied around him so that he stood out like a beacon to even an untrained eye. All this Ean gleaned from the currents alone, without ever laying eyes upon the man in the flesh.

  The prince kept the cortata close now, spinning into and out of its pattern each time he met, clashed with and ultimately dispatched those unfortunate enough to cross his path. As his awareness spanned ahead and around, setting patterns to falling apart like cobwebs in his passing, Ean realized he’d done this before—that he’d many times progressed through an enemy’s stronghold in just this manner.

  Too, the more he allowed Arion’s knowledge to emerge, the wider the trench of its path to restoration, the faster the flow of memory.

  It was doing that restored his knowledge, need that brought it forth, and working the patterns themselves that gave Ean certainty. By the time he reached the towering double doors leading into Tyr’kharta’s grand hall, Ean no longer had to think about what he was doing. He had regained a wielder’s instincts.

  The prince slowed before the tall doors and scanned for patterns, his senses on full alert. This was where his talent boosted him far beyond the skill of other Adepts, for he need not rely on the currents to hint at what lay in wait. Ean could see the patterns themselves hovering in the aether as clearly as a Nodefinder would gaze upon the nodes.

  Ean unworked the three wards he found upon the doors, and while these were dispersing, he cast his awareness beyond them, into the hall. Patterns layered through it, thick as cobwebs in a cave. This much he could tell, though Ean would have to enter before he could see each pattern fully.

  He sensed the man he sought inside. Pinning him with his awareness like a marker on a map, Ean spun out another first-strand pattern around the man to tell him what it could.

  The action spurred a sudden memory.

  As he stood facing the tall doors, with the still-unraveling patterns swirling around him, the prince was transported to a different hall where fires raged, where the First Lord went to confront a band of deserters and Ean/Arion stood to battle a traitor of a different color, and—

  Ean realized that he’d done this before, too…this study of his enemy from beyond closed doors, studying his pattern to better know his opponent. He recalled something else as well, and the knowledge shook him to the core.

  Arion Tavestra did not die on Tiern’aval.

  Yet if not there, where?

  Ean pushed away this startling realization and the many questions it raised out of necessity, but he suspected its mystery would haunt him for days to come.

  The last of the wards on the doors dissolved. Ean pulled them open and stalked through, entering a vast, vaulted hall dimly lit by high chandeliers. Now he could see the patterns spider-webbing the chamber, heavy iron traps for the wolf who walked the powerful strands of the fourth and fifth. There were smaller snares, too, for rabbits of the first and foxes of the second. Even the third would be caught by broad nets set to plunge with the slightest tremble of its gossamer strand. As Rhakar had warned, this wielder had been busy.

  Ean wondered if the wielder had somehow protected himself from these many snares, or if he truly intended to meet only in hand to hand combat—for Raine’s truth, neither of them could wield the lifeforce with so many patterns in place. In either event, the prince knew the man was unprepared for him. Walking further within, he plucked at the closest isolated pattern as if a harp string and started it unraveling.

  “Ean val Lorian…” the voice floated to him from out of a void of darkness, from the deep shadows that collected in pools down the length of the chamber and along the wall of high, stained-glass windows. “The Lord Captain assured me you would come. I must admit some disappointment to find you possessed of such foolish notions of nobility.”

  That voice…!

  It had to be illusion. Ean moved into the chamber, deeply sensitive to the patterns fluttering in his wake. He treated them as fragile moths and was careful not to
disturb their integrity by working elae, for though beautiful in their intricate construction, each was poison to the touch. “Who are you?” Ean kept the cortata hovering close within his consciousness. “Show yourself.”

  Işak moved from the shadows into a circle of light. Tall and broad of shoulder and with dark hair, he stood so similar to Ean in build that they might’ve been brothers; but unlike the prince, he moved with a slight limp, and a velvet mask concealed his face.

  “You’re very like your brother with these grand notions of honor,” Işak remarked as he moved further into the light. “I recently encountered the illustrious Trell val Lorian, back from the dead as it were. That is, before he was taken to M’Nador to face Radov’s wrath for not having the decency to die the first time—Oh…you didn’t know.” Işak smiled at the look of shock on Ean’s face. “Yes, your dear brother was first among the men I captured.”

  For all the shock of this pronouncement, Ean barely registered what the man was saying, for his voice… He knew it must be some kind of illusion, although extraordinarily well crafted. He cast his awareness toward the patterns floating around the room, searching for any that would hold such a deceptive illusion in place, but found none.

  Returning his attention to the wielder’s life-pattern then—its light barely discernable beneath a mass of corrupted, intertwining strands of the fourth—Ean perceived something of the man himself that awakened strange feelings.

  What’s happening here?

  Ean forced himself to focus. He chose an isolated fourth-strand ward and started it unraveling, giving his mind something to do beyond worrying over perceptions that made no sense.

  Işak meanwhile stopped in the center of the circle of light and drew forth a black-bladed weapon. “Merdanti, yes,” he observed, noting the prince’s gaze. “It appears that yours is not. Pity.” He toyed with his sword in a display of skill while remarking, “I had hoped for a fair battle. The Captain said you could hold your own with a blade.”

  Ean stared at him oddly, at the practiced pattern of loops and spins he was making with his weapon. It, too, was familiar to him. He tried to shake the feeling of kismet that held him inexplicably in thrall, but he felt as if he stood suddenly on a threshold…nay, on a precipice overlooking the valley of his future. He saw myriad branching paths extending from this very point.

  “There can be no fair match between us,” the prince replied in a low voice, wishing he could understand how the man was doing this to him and why he felt such odd feelings of fate and connection.

  Işak stilled at his reply. “That is true,” and his tone revealed of a well of bitter torment when he added, “for how can anything be fair when all have named you and forgotten?”

  Chills striped Ean. Such words…in that voice… Could it be possible?

  He had to know.

  Abruptly Ean started forward, intent now upon reaching the man, upon seeing his unmasked face and looking into his eyes. Now he cared not if he disturbed the patterns. Rather he leaped at all he could reach and started them rapidly unraveling, an outlet for the riotous energy that filled him.

  Işak grew agitated at his approach. “Stay back!” He threatened with blade extended. “Stop or face your death, Ean!” and there was such rabid desperation in this last exclamation that Ean complied.

  He paused just beyond the circle of light while the dissolving energy of countless patterns showered down. Wondering what in nine hells was happening to him, Ean exhaled and murmured, “Then let us face it together.”

  He rushed into the light.

  Işak uttered a growl of fury and sprang to meet him. Their blades clashed, sparked and then separated roughly as each man pushed off the other. Ean’s blade sang as true as any black-bladed Merdanti weapon, and with his mind wrapped around it, he knew the thrill of rapport with a sentient blade. Even a world away, Phaedor was still protecting him.

  Işak led the second attack, coming at Ean with his sword sweeping up from the left. Ean parried with a downward blow, and the subsequent clanging and scraping of their blades formed a rapid percussion. Ean drew upon the cortata, but he recognized at once that the wielder he battled also followed its dance, and as their fierce interplay continued, Ean noted that they were well matched.

  What Işak’s limp lost him in coordination, he made up for in sheer strength, while Ean’s agility and alacrity with the lifeforce kept him apace. But most surprising was that their fighting styles were nearly identical—almost as if they’d shared the same swordmaster—and it was nigh impossible for one to get the upper hand. The fight might’ve continued for hours, with both of them using elae to fuel their blades, but Ean grew ever more disturbed. His instincts veritably shouted the wrongness of this course.

  Finally, he spun out of the cortata, out and away from the other wielder, trying desperately to make sense of what he was experiencing. They stalked one another then with chests heaving, their steps circling the edge of the light.

  To buy himself time to interpret the perceptions bombarding him, Ean posed, “My men. Release them, and I will spare your life.”

  Işak laughed, but there was only despair in it. “By now your men are kingdoms away—did you think us so foolish as to keep them here?”

  Again the voice—it tormented him so! Ean tried to clear his mind of the man’s impossible voice, which was proving every bit as effective at incapacitating him as any pattern of the fourth. Worse was the feeling of misdoing that bit and clung like a viper, staying his hand when he should’ve been free to slay, to wreak vengeance. Instead, he found himself divided between his duty to his loyal soldiers and a desperate need to confirm his suspicions of the identity of the man before him.

  Suddenly Işak hissed a foul curse. His gaze darted around the hall, and Ean watched him grow more agitated still, the muscles in his arms and neck twitching. “Ah Cephrael, no!” he despaired, having now apparently realized that his patterns were disappearing. He pinned the prince with a frantic look, eye wild behind his mask. “Shade and darkness, don’t you see what you’ve done?”

  His words and tone were perplexing. The man sounded horrified where anger should’ve ruled. Yet he was right in noting that the only patterns that remained in the room were those seeking use of the fifth, and Ean knew better than to risk touching them even in unworking—for he was an Adept of that elusive strand, and it was too likely that they would trigger at the merest whisper of his mental touch.

  “You damn fool—fool man!” Işak nearly wept, turning from side to side as the last of his patterns dissolved away. “Those traps were all that protected you from me—” Suddenly he staggered, as if beneath a powerful force, seemed to haltingly recover, shook his head from side to side, and then—

  Compulsion fell upon Ean like a cougar pouncing from above.

  He fallen to one knee before he even realized that the pattern had hold of his mind, and it was a harrowing length more before he concluded that his body was not actually on fire.

  Never was he so grateful for Markal’s brutal training than in that moment, as he watched the masked wielder coming ominously towards him across the circle. Still, ripping the pattern off of his mind felt like ripping out his own heart. He stared into the blazing inferno that was the compulsion pattern, risking its searing heat and blinding light both, and though the pattern told him he was already burning, already dying, still he wrapped a mental hand around it. Pain flared through his entire body as the pattern surged to engulf his mind, and Ean cried out.

  Then he squeezed. Squeezed until the pattern bled elae through his mental fingers, until the flames dimmed…and were extinguished.

  Just as Işak reached him wearing death’s grimace and his sword raised for a killing stroke.

  Ean launched up under his guard and grabbed the man’s descending wrist with one hand. With the other, he ripped off his mask.

  The face that stared at him in horror could not have been more stricken than Ean’s own.

  The prince fell back, stagg
ered by the sight.

  Işak roared in return, and his eyes were murderous. His Merdanti blade swung for Ean’s neck, a slicing razor. The prince dove, rolled, scrambled for his sword—and simultaneously called the fourth to form a wall between them. A band of energy rocketed upwards. The force of its eruption blasted Işak backwards through the air. He landed in a skid, and his sword clattered into the shadows.

  Immensely shaken, Ean pushed to his feet. It was not for his own safety that he’d raised the shield. There was a terrible truth hiding in the room, and he would brook its concealment no longer. Holding his blade low, Ean approached the shimmering barrier. His eyes were glued to the man just beyond—how could they not be? “It is you, isn’t it?” Looking upon the man’s face was impossibly painful.

  Işak was on hands and knees now and struggling to recover.

  Ean made the shield move before him as he advanced. His entire focus had shifted. He was no longer there to seek vengeance upon a kidnapper; he wondered now if he ever truly had been. “Dear Epiphany,” Ean breathed, pinning the other with his gaze. “Sebastian? Where have you been all this time?”

  Işak choked back a despairing cry. He hung his head, and his voice was hoarse with grief as he answered, “N’ghorra.”

  But he gave Ean no time to compute this dreadful truth, for in the same moment he launched to his feet and flung an eruption of the fourth toward Ean’s barrier. The blast exploded in a blaze of sizzling light.

  The blast reverberate against Ean’s pattern, and he struggled to keep his shield in place. “N’ghorra,” he repeated, horrified. “They did this to you there?”

  With both fury and desolation in his gaze, Işak threw a cascading barrage of raw power towards Ean, the harvested energy of the fourth. The prince altered his pattern to absorb it, lest they both go flying. Yet the forceful reverberation of his own working cast Işak stumbling, and Ean watched him trip over his sword and fall.

  “Sebastian…” Ean pressed forward with pity and fury both in his tone. “Who did this to you?”