Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One

by McPhail, Melissa

  Trell shrugged. “I hear they’re nice in the winter months—that is, if you can abide all the pirates hanging around.”

  Carian winked at him.

  “My turn,” Trell said. “What’s the different between a Nodefinder and an Espial?” He frowned, adding, “Is there a difference?”

  “Pshaw!” hissed the pirate. “Is there a difference, he asks! You’re damned right there is!” He gestured with his dagger as he explained, “Espials are kept pets, bilge-sucking courtiers yoked by their balls to a sovereign’s whims. All they do is pander to the nobles, carting them around like farm dogs on a choke-leash. I’d rather match blades with a Whisper Lord than take a position in any king’s court. Nodefinders now,” he went on, sweeping a broad arc in front of him with the dagger in his hand, “they’re true adventurers! You wanna traverse uncharted territory? You get yourself a Nodefinder. He’ll be up for the challenge.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “It’ll cost you that horse,” Carian said, leveling Trell a rakish grin. “Fair warning: I plan to relieve you of her when our bargain is done.”

  “Good luck,” Trell replied cheerfully. “I rather think you take your life in your own hands, but by all means be my guest at the attempt. You see, she was a gift from a mage.”

  Carian stared at him. “That wouldn’t be the same mage who’s rumored to ride a similar Hallovian steed, would it?”

  Trell shrugged, grinned.

  “And here I thought you an innocent youth, only to discover you’re in league with wizards.”

  “And Whisper Lords,” Trell added pleasantly. “At least, I believe he would call me a friend.”

  The pirate looked dubious. “And where did you meet all these marvelous denizens of magic? The Akkad?”

  “No,” Trell murmured, suddenly reminiscent of his time with Loghain and the others and how special it now seemed, “…at a sa’reyth.”

  Carian came to a sudden standstill and grabbed Trell’s arm fiercely. “A sa’reyth!” he hissed. “You’ve been to a sa’reyth?” When Trell only gazed neutrally at him, the pirate released his arm and started walking again, shaking his head in wonder. “I heard rumors they were being established again, but I never…” He eyed Trell suspiciously. “I’ve never known anyone who’s gone to one and lived to tell about it.”

  Trell thought about all that he’d seen and learned at the First Lord’s sa’reyth; the complex might be a sanctuary to some, but it was certainly deadly to those who fell on the wrong side of the Sundragons’ loyalties.

  “My journey began with the blessing of a Goddess,” Trell offered with a pensive frown, thinking not of his visit to Naiadithine’s shrine but to his earlier meeting with her, in the depths of the Fire Sea. “She took a liking to me, I think. Ever since, I’ve been somewhat under her eye.”

  Carian cast him a look of flat disbelief. “Assuming I believe you,” and his tone said clearly enough that he didn’t, “how by Cephrael’s Great Book did you gain a goddess’s favor?” His tone suggested he thought of only one possible route to such a boon, and clearly he didn’t think Trell so adept at sailing those waters.

  Trell shook off his pensive mood and cast the pirate an elusive look. “I’m not obligated to divulge the secrets of my code.”

  Carian frowned at him. “What code is that?”

  “The Heartbreaker’s Code.”

  “Never heard of it. You must tell me…”

  Trell laughed as they continued down the country lane, the pirate berating him all the while with questions which he was happily not obligated to answer.

  They ate what must’ve been a midday meal in Sevilla, though it felt like a midnight dinner to Trell, and then walked the streets of the sprawling southern city in search of Carian’s next node.

  “So this next exit might be a little hairy,” Carian cautioned as he peered intently into every alley they came to and then shook his head, moving on.

  Trell watched him curiously. “Another hostile housewife?”

  Carian sucked on a tooth and thumbed his dagger as they walked by a cobbler’s store, a haberdashery closed ‘in protest of Guild exploitation’, and a corner fruit-seller boasting pears supposedly blessed by the goddess Aphrodesia. Carian eyed the pears as they passed, replying, “A little more dangerous than our last encounter, boyo—but nothing I can’t handle. Take my advice and stay quiet, so nothing happens to your pretty little head.”

  “I am quite attached to it,” Trell agreed. “The nymphs I met liked it too.”

  Carian shook his head in wonder, but the confusion behind his brown eyes made him look slightly pained.

  After walking back and forth down a particular avenue three times, the Nodefinder finally had an idea. “Stay here.” He darted into a tavern across the street. Trell waited curiously while the afternoon sun drifted toward the horizon. In the distance, he could just make out the high masts of ships crowding Sevilla’s harbor and what might’ve been the glint of the South Agasi Sea between two far hills.

  How long it’s been since I saw the ocean with my waking eyes, he realized, knowing now that it had once played an important role in his life. If only there weren’t so many castle towers overlooking charcoal seas, for knowing he’d been educated in a seaside tower opened no new doors of his puzzle.

  Suddenly Trell heard a crash, followed by shouting from an alley across the street. He led Gendaia to the alley’s entrance in time to see Carian being thrown against a wall. The Nodefinder staggered as if drunk and fell down.

  “And stay out!” shouted someone from inside the door. An arm reached around and grabbed the handle, slamming it shut.

  Curious, Trell led Gendaia toward the pirate, who was instantly up on one elbow and grinning from ear to ear. “So I was here, like this…” Carian said mostly to himself as Trell approached, “and then I got up,” and he jumped to his feet, “and went over this way to throw up,” and he walked further down the alley, “and then I turned and saw…” He turned, and his face brightened. “The node!”

  When Trell reached his side, he saw another alley connecting into the one they followed. Its entrance was quite hidden from the street. Carian led him to the center of the alley. “Quiet now,” he whispered.

  “Shall we hold hands again, sweetheart?”

  “Unless you’d rather be forever lost within the woof and warp of the realm,” the pirate answered with a grim smile.

  Trell took hold of his arm.

  They emerged from the rush of passage into the dark of night. Trell stilled to let his eyes adjust, but then he blinked at the scene. He and Gendaia stood on bare earth between two long rows of hammocks strung beneath a thatched roof. Every hammock contained a sleeping form, and the night reverberated with the noises of the surrounding jungle, which mingled disharmoniously with the snores of slumbering men. The moonlight illumined a post to Trell’s right, which was studded with what on first glance seemed to be shriveled apples but upon closer inspection turned out to be shrunken human heads.

  Trell swung a scathing glare toward the Nodefinder, only to discover that he was already far ahead and carefully tip-toeing past the sleeping tribe of Shi’ma.

  Of all the fool-brained schemes I’ve ever heard tell of, taking a node into the heart of Shi’ma territory has to be the most obscene perversion of pushing one’s luck ever conceived.

  Trell wasn’t the religious sort, but as he stood in the midst of the two-dozen sleeping headhunters, he said a quick prayer to Angharad and Thalma, begging their forgiveness on Carian’s behalf. Then he trod carefully after the islander, leading Gendaia and cursing the man with every step.

  He’d taken no more than two paces before he noticed several thin reeds, each of them five paces or so tall, which leaned against the support poles where the hammocks connected. It didn’t take much guesswork to recognize them as blowpipes used to deliver the deadly poisoned darts the Shi’ma favored. As he passed each pole then, Trell began gathering the long pipes as quietly as he could.
By the time he and Gendaia passed out from underneath the thatched roof, he had an armload of the weapons.

  “What’s all that?” Carian hissed at him as he reached the pirate’s side.

  “Insurance,” Trell whispered in return.

  Looking cross, the Nodefinder turned and moved quickly but silently through the village. Trell followed more slowly, searching for someplace to stash the pipes. He found what he was looking for as he passed coals burning low in an open mud oven, and he saw a clay pit just beside it. He shoved the pipes into the soft earth with only a faint sucking noise.

  “Come on!” Carian hissed under his breath.

  Assured that the tubes would be useless for killing them that night, Trell hurried to catch up. They were nearly to the edge of the village when Thalma closed her eye to them and their luck changed.

  A group of Shi’ma emerged from the deep forest, six in all. Their low voices were the hum of beetles until one of them spotted Trell, whereupon the headhunter opened his mouth and emitted a shrill cackle like the cry of a carrion bird. Suddenly the six Shi’ma were charging and Trell was on Gendaia and grabbing for the islander’s arm, dragging the man up behind him even as Gendaia plunged into the trees.

  The jungle grew thinner around the Shi’ma village, for which Trell was grateful, but Gendaia still had a rough go of it as she sped away, struggling through waves of showering vines. Leaves larger than their heads slapped Trell and Carian, and twice low-hanging limbs nearly knocked Trell from his horse.

  The Shi’ma were close on their heels—too close! Trell heard the spits of deadly darts slicing leaves and thudding into trees around them; they seemed to hit in time with the Islander’s hissed curses. Only the night saved them, blurring the warriors’ aim just enough to keep the darts off their mark. But Trell had no illusions about outrunning the Shi’ma. This was their territory.

  Carian exhaled a stream of curses in what Trell assumed must be the pirate’s native tongue while shouts resounded behind them in the chase and Gendaia struggled through the thick jungle. When she finally emerged onto a path, Trell heeled her into a canter, leaning forward to duck overhanging branches while the Nodefinder behind him was nearly bent in half and holding on for dear life.

  “What in Epiphany’s name were you thinking!” Trell snarled as Gendaia gained in speed. “Shi’ma? Are you insane?”

  “It was the most efficient way,” the Islander returned unrepentantly. “What—are you scared of a few savages?”

  “No,” Trell growled as he hugged low against Gendaia’s neck to avoid the tree limbs lying in wait, “just their darts tipped in poison.”

  As if to accentuate his point, another barrage of stinging darts whipped past them, shredding the leaves of the trees to either side. One dart struck Trell’s saddle just a fingertip from his thigh, and another whizzed past his ear close enough that he imagined he could smell the poison on the needle-thin point. Trell hugged Gendaia closer as she ran and snarled under his breath, “If just one of those bloody things hits my horse, Islander, I’ll kill you!”

  “Easy there, my handsome,” came Carian’s response low in his ear. Trell could see his irreverent, toothsome grin even without looking at him. “Don’t dive in deeper than you can swim.”

  In that moment, Gendaia reared. She shoved all four hooves in front of her in an attempt to stop, but the loamy earth was muddy and slick. Too late, Trell saw the ravine.

  Time seemed to slow. Carian shouted something as their momentum carried them forward, and then they were across the edge and falling through the air. Trell spun away from Gendaia, while the pirate launched himself backwards, flipping head over heels, his long hair flying behind him, a variegated pinwheel in his downward rush.

  No sooner did Trell hear the river than he was landing in it. He hit sideways, slicing into the water with a stinging slap all along his left side. The river punished him for his lack of grace, spewing water up his nose and ripping the air from his lungs. He felt the current grab him, and he swam with it, surfacing with a gasp.

  The barest paling of the sky was enough to illumine the water, which was carrying him swiftly downstream. “Carian!”

  “Here!”

  Trell caught sight of Carian’s head bobbing in the waves, and then they were plunging into whitewater. Trell had time to curse the pirate before the first tumbling wave hit him in the face. He quickly deduced that he’d better breathe at the base of the waves, not at their crest, and he kept his feet downstream while the water ripped him over the deep rocks. It seemed an interminable battle to stay afloat, what was only a minute at most. At last, the water calmed, and Trell swam for an eddy. Carian joined him there, coughing and sputtering. Gendaia was nowhere in sight.

  Trell grabbed onto an overhanging limb and coughed the last of the water from his lungs. The icy flow was too deep to find purchase with his feet and the rock walls to sheer to climb, so the two men clung to the branches while the current rushed beneath and around them.

  Trell slung wet hair from his eyes with a toss of his head. “How far to the node?”

  “Too far,” the pirate gasped, still breathless. “We’ll have to find another one.”

  Trell replied with an unforgiving glare.

  “I know, I know,” Carian muttered. “If anything happens to your horse… So let’s go find her, shall we?” He threw himself backwards into the river and was immediately swept away downstream.

  Trell followed, feeling the weight of his sword and boots as cumbersome but necessary accoutrements. As he swam, the image of Naiadithine smiling in the depths of the sea came unbidden to memory. Almost in the same moment, he felt something nudging his back and spun to find a floating log bumping against him. He grabbed onto it, relieved to be able to relax and let the current carry him.

  He was getting a stronger hold on the log and worrying over Gendaia when a hush descended over the river. Trell looked around and saw that the river had entered a narrow gorge perhaps fifteen paces wide but easily three-hundred feet high. Dark, shimmering stone jutted upwards on either side, with a pale strip of sky brightening with the dawn in between.

  Trell was immensely aware of the deep water beneath him, and he feared for Gendaia so intensely that he felt choked by the emotion. He laid his head upon the log and prayed as the water carried him along, calling out to Naiadithine to beg her help. He had no idea if she would hear him, or if she did, if she would take pity on his horse. He didn’t know if she’d been angered by his union with Fhionna, or if she’d care enough to help when her god-sister Thalma had seen fit to abandon them, but he opened his heart and mind to her as Fhionna had taught him that night on the edge of the Cry, and he poured all of his hope into that tenuous thread.

  Please, my Goddess, he whispered. Please take Gendaia unto your breast and keep her safe.

  He emptied his mind then, just in case the goddess chose to reply—not hoping or expecting really that she would, but more out of respect. Just when he was about to open his eyes, he heard her whisper.

  Trell of the Tides.

  Her greeting was languid, warm with welcome, a cool embrace received in the waters sweeping about his chest. And in the moment that he felt her presence ebb and fade, he heard the echo of a waterfall.

  Follow the water, Trell of the Tides.

  “Trell!”

  Trell opened his eyes to see Carian just ahead of him. The pirate, for once, looked worried. Trell kicked over to him.

  “Madness!” Carian panted as he grabbed a hold of the log. “Is it more rapids?”

  “No,” Trell said, somehow knowing what awaited. “A waterfall.”

  “Black balls of Belloth,” the pirate swore.

  Trell cast him a sooty look. “This is what happens when you thumb your nose at Thalma.”

  “Who?”

  “The Goddess of Luck.”

  Carian slung strands of long black hair from his eyes and frowned at him over the log. “We’ve got an understanding, her and I.”

  “
I think she’s recently reconsidered your accord.”

  Carian was about to reply, but then he saw the end of the world approaching—the waterfall’s rim. “Shiiiiite!” yelled the pirate, and then they were swept over the falls and falling…falling, until Trell plunged into the depths.

  Water rammed up his nose, but the pool below was deep and free of hazards. He swam for the surface and then headed for a beach downstream of the falls. He pulled himself onto the sand and collapsed on his side. A moment later, Carian dragged himself out of the water and fell to his back with a loud exhalation of relief.

  Trell closed his eyes and said a long prayer of thanks, adding a prayer to Thalma begging forgiveness on Carian’s behalf. He realized as he finished that he’d suddenly become a religious man. There was nothing quite like communing with a god to illuminate one to the value of faith.

  Something wet and warm slopped against his forehead. Trell instinctively swept his arm up to push it off, but his hand met with a familiar warmth that roused him with a leap of his heart. He spun up onto one elbow, whereupon Gendaia greeted him with a nudge of her nose against his face. Relief flooded him.

  Trell collapsed back in the sand and gazed up into Gendaia’s brown eyes. “Hello, Daybreak,” he welcomed her in the desert tongue. “Had a nice swim then did you?”

  Gendaia tossed her wet mane. Having apparently assured herself that Trell was fine, she wandered back into the shadows of the clearing, where Trell saw a patch of grass growing out of the rocks as if placed there for her singular dining pleasure. When he looked back to Carian, he found the pirate watching him.

  “That’s some horse,” Carian observed with a wink. “Can’t say as I’d blame you for wanting my life in trade.” He broke into a grin. “No hard feelings, eh?”

  Trell pushed palms to tired eyes. “I hope it’s worth it, whatever this prize you seek.”

  “Sure as silver,” he returned. He sat up and scratched his wet head and frowned. Using two hands, he disentangled whatever it was from his masses of tangled waves, withdrawing at last one of the Shi’ma darts. “Huh,” he remarked, tossing the thing over his shoulder. “Close one!” Then he grinned.