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

by McPhail, Melissa

  Darshan’venkhátraman’s boots rang on the frozen stones as he swept into the room, bones and ice crunching beneath his feet. He walked to the middle of the wide circular chamber and looked up. Thirty paces above, a tiny pinpoint of light heralded freedom. “There now,” he encouraged as he withdrew a bird from the folds of his coat, holding the frightened thing gently between both hands. “There is your future. Reach for it—go!” He threw the bird into the frozen air and watched with fascination as the tiny creature batted its frail wings, as it struggled to fly higher…higher.

  But long before it reached the domed roof, the little bird’s flight became erratic, bouncing and swerving with a frenzied beating of wings, its goal somehow lost or forgotten. It hit the wall once but recovered, finding again its bearings in a last vain attempt to reach freedom and future. And then without fanfare, it simply fell from the air, plummeting downward to hit the stones with an insignificant thunk.

  “Why do you bother?” a voice asked critically.

  Darshan turned to see his brother Shail leaning against the wall, his dark eyes piercing, the inevitable gilded feather caught between his fingers, spinning…spinning.

  “As ever, my youngest brother, you fail to see the greater meaning.” Darshan bent and picked up the tiny bird, its feathers already brittle. “With this one act—the little bird struggling to gain its freedom—we encompass the vast cycle of life in this world.” He held the broken thing in his palm for Shail to view. “Creatures big or small, intelligent or ignorant, violent or peaceable, all strive toward survival, toward freedom and future.

  Darshan lifted the bird, twisting it such that the light caught the frost on its body. “Yet is their quest not ultimately for naught? As did the little bird, most creatures lose sight of their puny goals; they pass unknowingly by their window of opportunity, their one chance of future, distracted as they always are by petty trifles and insignificant attachments. Oblivious to the futility then, still they struggle against forces they cannot understand, becoming ever more beaten and battered. As with our little bird, the ice of inevitability crystallized on its wings.” He smiled wistfully and held the bird toward his brother. “If only our little bird could understand the forces at work against it,” and his smile grew broader and colder, hinting at intentions that were terrible in consequence. “But you see, this too is part of the cycle. These fragile creatures are not meant to understand things beyond the scope of their existence, beyond their established ken. They are born ultimately to die, and in this purpose, my brother, all succeed.”

  “How very inspiring,” said a tall man just then entering through the room’s arched opening.

  “Thank you, Pelas,” Darshan said, turning with a nod of acknowledgement. He tossed the little bird absently away and looked to his brothers. Though they all wore different attire, it was clear by their features that they were cut from the same cloth. All had long ebony hair, all were tall and broad-shouldered, and all had dark, unforgiving eyes.

  “So, we three are assembled,” Darshan said. “Who shall begin?”

  “I,” said Shail. “The man whose pattern I identified has eluded all efforts to eliminate him. His survival is becoming something of a nuisance. The agents assigned are refusing to complete the task.”

  “So compel them,” Pelas spat, as if the matter was beneath this gathering of minds.

  “You know so little, brother,” Shail returned contemptuously. “Wildlings are useless under our compulsion. Their magic fails—it is too fragile a thing when pitted against our power.”

  Darshan considered Shail. “Since you bring this matter to our council, you must believe the problem requires a more stringent approach.”

  “The man must be eliminated,” Shail declared emphatically, apparently not caring how much his older brother learned of him through the outburst. He sliced the air with his feather to emphasize his point, adding under his breath, “In the past, those who claimed that pattern have created problems for us.”

  “Problems for you,” Pelas sneered. Shail cast him a venomous look.

  Darshan frowned. “I cannot say I share your concern, brother, but I applaud your proactive fervor. What then is your desire of this gathering?”

  “I would like to put the matter to Rinokh.”

  Pelas barked a laugh. At Shail’s glare, he raised both hands and said, “I have no qualms with calling our eldest brother to the task, but I doubt he will help you.”

  “The excursion will do Rinokh good. He wastes too much time frying up Avatarens for sport. But Shail,” Darshan said, looking back to him, “I cannot condone failure. Those who serve us must learn that obedience is absolute.”

  “Punishment will be meted as due reward,” Shail assured him.

  Darshan nodded his approval. He looked to Pelas then. “And you, brother?”

  Pelas broke into a feral smile. “I continue my search for the pattern of Unworking.”

  Shail grunted in disgust.

  “Deploy your hypocrisy on those who cannot see through it, brother,” Pelas returned. “We all have our games. Darshan’s dabbling in religion, your petty politicking with doomed kings. You seem to have fallen prey to your own pretences.”

  Darshan arched a disapproving brow. “Yet your bloodbaths are gaining undue notice, Pelas’ommáyurek. I would not have them compromise our work.”

  “You have your diversions,” Pelas argued with his smoldering gaze pinned on his older brother. “I am allowed mine.”

  “For now,” Darshan returned evenly. He looked to both his brothers then. “Pelas is right: I see no wrong in our little games, but never let us mimic these pathetic creatures and lose sight of our greater purpose. Purpose is all.”

  The three brothers held each other’s gazes for a moment longer, trading back and forth among them until all agreed and understood what went unspoken. Then they turned their backs on one another, and though the circular room had but one entrance, they all found different exits.

  ***

  Standing at the low, crenellated wall of his tower rooftop, the Fourth Vestal Raine D’Lacourte withdrew his consciousness from rapport with the currents to reflect on what he’d just observed. Despite his incredulity, he didn’t doubt what he saw—a Truthreader learned from his earliest training never to doubt his instincts—yet the truth was nigh to impossible.

  Ean had worked elae.

  Björn did it, Raine thought with closed eyes, a grave relief washing over him. Somehow the Fifth Vestal had found a way to Awaken an Adept after the window of adolescence had closed. The ramifications were monumental.

  It means the revivification of our race.

  Raine turned from the view without noticing the majestic, snowcapped peaks that were the backdrop of his family’s chateau in Vienne-Sur-Le Valle, for his thoughts were already far away. He took the curving steps down from the roof two at a time, exiting the circular tower into his book-lined study. He meant to contact Alshiba right away with the news, but his steward was waiting for him across the room, standing in the open doorway.

  “Your Excellency,” the man said with a polite bow, “a visitor requests your audience. He gave his name as Andrus Vargha.”

  Raine didn’t know the name. Walking to his desk, he asked, “Is he a Truthreader? Did he state his business?”

  “He is Geshaiwyn, your Excellency.”

  Raine straightened, setting down again the papers he’d just collected.

  “There is something else, my lord. The man is clearly unwell.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He waits in the Damask Room.”

  Raine walked swiftly from his study, followed by his steward. “Did you call for a Healer?” the Vestal asked as he traversed the arching, buttressed hallway tiled in pale green marble.

  “I thought it best that you saw him first, my lord.”

  Raine arched a brow, knowing then that his visitor’s condition must be dire indeed.

  The Damask Room was located in the south-eastern c
orner of the chateau and had commanding views of the Eidenglass range and the Rogue Valley. It was also usually the warmest room in the house.

  Raine found a fire ablaze in the six-foot hearth as he entered the room, whose walls were lined in sanguine damask silk. Even with the roaring fire, his visitor was curled upon a divan just inches from the flames with a heavy wool tapestry-blanket draped across his chest. He inched up as Raine approached, and the Vestal saw immediately what his steward had seen: a shell of a man not long for this world. Vargha’s face was paper-thin and ash-grey, his skin as withered as a lily scorched by the sun, his body emaciated beyond reason or repair.

  Raine had seen another man in such a condition too recently for comfort, though at least Vargha wouldn’t disintegrate at the touch of his boot. Not yet.

  “Your Excellency,” Vargha rasped as Raine approached. “Forgive me for not standing.”

  “I can see your condition, Mr. Vargha. How can I help you?”

  Vargha must’ve caught the double meaning of his question, for he pressed a bony hand to his forehead as if it pained him and answered in a dry, wafer-thin voice, “I should’ve gone to the Third Vestal, I know, for he is our representative and has always treated with us fairly.”

  Raine’s crystalline eyes fixed upon the man. “You are an Agent of Malchiarr?”

  Vargha drew in a shuddering breath. “Yes.” His dark eyes held Raine’s gaze, though they were so sunken into the hollows of their sockets that his lids looked stretched to cover them. “You probably don’t approve of us, my lord,” Varga whispered, “and you wouldn’t be alone. After the wars, we forged our livelihoods as best we could, trading on the gifts that were our birthright. We may have chosen poorly in this, but the Third Vestal…he understood—”

  Vargha fell into a fit of coughing, the sound of wind rustling dry summer wheat. When he recovered, he drew in another wheezing breath, rubbed his forehead with a pained frown and continued in his desert-dry voice, “But I do not know if Seth Silverbow would understand this news I bear, my lord. I heard you were in Vienne-Sur-Le Valle, and it’s well known that the Great Master rerouted a node to your front door. After I left our council in Malchiarr, I wasn’t sure how far I could travel…”

  “You needn’t go on with explanations, Mr. Vargha,” Raine said gently. He lowered himself onto the edge of an armchair across from his guest and rested elbows on knees. “Just tell me what you want me to know.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Vargha managed. “Thank you for hearing me, for my news is grave.”

  Vargha began his confession by describing his interactions with the Karakurt. He told Raine of their council accepting the contract on a northern prince, and how shocked they all were when their first pair of agents was lost. “When our third failed, our council agreed we must break the contract. I was the agent who delivered the message to the Karakurt.”

  He told Raine then of his meeting with her, and finally of the mysterious but deadly Avataren witchlord. “He licked his thumb,” Vargha said, closing his eyes and shuddering, “and then he…pushed it to my head—here,” and he tapped two fingers to his forehead. “It burned, my lord,” Vargha confessed breathlessly, sounding as if he was truly in agony.

  Raine had already suspected this truth. “His touch burned you?”

  “Like ice, but…worse. A hundred times worse. It burns still…it won’t stop. Yet I’m so cold…” He pressed the palm of his hand to his head again, rubbing a small circle. “The witchlord,” Vargha pressed on, “he told me we must complete the contract or face extermination.”

  Raine drew back in surprise. “Extermination?”

  “His words, my lord.”

  Raine knew of the loyalty of Agents of Malchiarr to their tribes. He could only imagine the Council of Malchiarr’s response upon receiving such a threat—what would any of us do in the same situation? His gaze was compassionate as he asked, “Did your council decide to take the contract back?”

  “No, my lord.”

  Now Raine was truly shocked.

  “It was toxic to us,” Vargha wheezed. “We’ve never lost so many over a single mark. The council elected to let this witchlord try to carry out his threat. We do not intend to sit idly by. We have spread the word that this contract violates Balance. We don’t think anyone will touch it now, save perha—” but he fell into another fit of dry coughing that lasted nearly five minutes.

  Raine let him recover without pressing him, though this information was of grave importance. It was an unexpected boon to Ean’s cause to know the Geshaiwyn would no longer pursue him, but if another agency took up the contract in their place… “Mr. Vargha,” Raine prodded gently after the man found his breath again. “Who does your council think will accept the contract?”

  “They think only the Tyriolicci.”

  Raine grimaced. The Tyriolicci were hardly less lethal than Geshaiwyn, but they were better known by a different name: Whisper Lords. He needed to get word to Fynnlar, traveling with Ean’s company. Or better yet… There were certain Wildlings uniquely suited to battle the Tyriolicci, and he knew one such who had trained all her life for such a mark. If I can just pry her out from under her uncle’s thumb…

  “My lord,” Vargha said, calling Raine’s attention back to him, “whoever this witchlord is, he is a threat to our existence—all of us. Just look at me—” he added with a sudden wild madness in his gaze, his voice wracked with grief and fear. “He did this to me with naught but his thumb!”

  Raine originally suspected that Andrus Vargha’s dangerously lethal ‘Avataren witchlord’ was actually Björn, but Vargha’s description of the witchlord was nothing like his oath-brother. If it isn’t Björn working deyjiin so readily, then who?

  It wasn’t the first time Raine had entertained the idea of others who might hold such power—it was his duty to explore every avenue in searching for the truth—but never had he felt any conviction about it. Now Vargha’s testimony made these ideas worth investigating. But did he dare believe what none of the Vestals would admit aloud?

  Not yet.

  If malorin’athgul walked the realm, he would need real evidence; more difficult still, he would have to prove in turn that Björn wasn’t behind the many crimes attributed to him. And frankly, he wasn’t ready to believe that.

  “You know, don’t you?” Vargha meanwhile managed in his rasping whisper. Raine looked back to him, to the sunken eyes and wasted flesh. His terrible deterioration reminded the Vestal sadly of Malachai in his last hours. Vargha whispered wretchedly, “You know what sort of spell does this…to a man.”

  Raine’s answering gaze was tragic. “It is a power called deyjiin, and I fear there is no cure.”

  Vargha closed his eyes in acceptance of his fate. “My lord,” he whispered after a long moment of silence, “would you grant me one boon?”

  “Mr. Vargha,” Raine said, “you have done the realm a great service by coming to me. I would grant you any boon within my power.”

  Vargha opened his eyes to hold Raine’s gaze. He could feel the man working up his courage to speak, hear the dreadful thoughts that raged within his tortured mind. “My lord…will you…take my life?” He sucked in his breath with three halting gasps. “I have done all…that I can. And I’m so cold…so unbearably cold!”

  Raine knew the man was only a few paces from Death’s doorstep. He needn’t do anything, for the task was already done. Yet while he couldn’t heal the doomed man, or do anything to stop deyjiin’s consumptive dance toward death, he could wrap Vargha’s mind in illusions and make him more comfortable during his last hours.

  Raine leaned and placed one hand on Vargha’s shoulder, the other hand finding the Truthreader’s form upon his temples and brow. “Good-bye, Andrus Vargha,” the Fourth Vestal murmured solemnly. “May the Maker bless you for your great service to our realm. By Epiphany’s Grace, we shall meet again in the Returning.”

  “The Maker will it so,” the Geshaiwyn whispered. He closed his eyes for the last tim
e and submitted to Raine’s working.

  Forty-one

  ‘If you focus on the obstacles, they will be all you see.’

  – Ramuhárikhamáth, Lord of the Heavens

  For the next few days, Ean’s company traveled under a pall. While Alyneri and Tanis were clearly both still unnerved by their experience, no one in the company was more disturbed than Ean. His mood was apparent to all, yet he seemed ignorant of the many worried looks cast his way.

  Day and night, the prince was tormented by his mistake—had they never gone into Acacia, might nothing untoward have happened? Mightn’t they have spent a quiet night on the moors and moved on the next day? Might he then be able to live with himself and Tanis sleep without nightmares? Might Alyneri look at him without such fear and concern in her gaze?

  Yet what then would you have learned? a voiced asked critically, in defiance of his guilt.

  But I’ve learned nothing!

  Yet he knew it wasn’t true. Though the happenings mystified him, he’d learned much in the experience, but he gravely regretted the price of that knowledge—Alyneri kidnapped, Tanis’s near brush with—and inexplicable escape from—Bethamin’s taint…

  What price will I be forced to pay in the future? he worried, though this wasn’t truly what he feared. No, he feared the price that others might be forced to pay, a price extracted against their will and without mercy by a destiny inflicted due to his own ill-advised choices.

  It isn’t right that I should have such power over their lives!

  He truly believed that, yet every time he had the thought, he heard always in reply his mother’s voice instructing, ‘Such is the mantle of a king, my son: to make a decision and stand by it, to have the courage to face the consequences of these decisions, knowing they may mean the death of his subjects.’

  These matters notwithstanding, Ean also knew that he was dwelling on them in truth because he dared not confront his deeper fears; no, he couldn’t even begin to think about what he’d done to the Marquiin.