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

by McPhail, Melissa

  And if you die and all is lost? his conscience posed.

  Ean gritted his teeth. Then I shall not die! he wished to say, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to such glibness. The threats against him were too real—the wound of Creighton’s loss bled ceaselessly, a constant drain on his energies. He often pushed memories of his dearest friend from mind, for even the good memories were too painful to recall.

  By the same token, he wasn’t sure his sanity would survive another such loss.

  Ean spun from the railing and made his way down the long, stepped staircase toward the stables, his shoulders hunched against his own dreadful thoughts.

  How do you bear it, father? he wondered miserably, the thought coming painfully in his chest, constricting his throat. How do you endure knowing your failures—your mistakes—meant the end of your sons? How do you keep pressing onward with your life?

  He reached the yard and headed for the stables, his gaze on his boots as they trod dully across shadowed cobblestones. So it was that he nearly ran into Matthieu, who had the prudence to sidestep out of the prince’s path.

  Ean drew up short, startled, but it was Matthieu who recoiled from Ean’s tormented gaze; it speared him, drawing the blood of compassion. “Mon dieu,” exclaimed the soldier, his long face caught in a look of sympathy. He took Ean by both shoulders. “Why do you fret so, mon seigneur? I told you, we will find the boy.”

  Wavering upon the sharp edge between grief and anger, Ean grabbed Matthieu’s arm in turn. “My cousin eluded your men, Matthieu,” he said tightly. “How can you be certain these others did not also?”

  “Yes, yes, we know all about your cousin,” Matthieu returned. He took Ean by the arm. “Twice he slipped through our walls, but not without our notice, mon seigneur. Trust that we are watching this spot—a servant’s private entrance—and save for your cousin, none but le comte’s staff have come or gone through it.”

  Ean held his gaze with hard, angry eyes. “I cannot risk it, Matthieu.” He jerked free his hand and pushed on toward the stables. “The hour has already passed.”

  “I have my ordairz, mon seigneur.” Matthieu sounded grim. “I cannot allow you to leave the walls.”

  “How do you plan to stop me?” Ean didn’t wait for an answer, and Matthieu didn’t give him one until the prince emerged from the stables leading Caldar by the bit and found a long line of stolid-faced guards barring his way.

  Ean settled a penetrating gaze on a dour-faced Matthieu. “So you mean to hold me prisoner?” he demanded bleakly. “Is this how you choose to represent le comte to my father?”

  Matthieu stalked forward and hissed in a low voice, “I did not ask for this confrontation, mon seigneur, but you ’ave forced me to take sterner measures. I ’ave my ordairz and my duty.”

  “As I have mine,” Ean returned resolutely. He drew his sword with an ominous scrape of steel.

  Immediately Matthieu’s men replied in kind.

  “Mon dieu!” Matthieu spun to his men, ordering hastily, “Rangez vos épées!” They sheathed their swords obediently. Matthieu turned back to Ean looking pained. “Mon seigneur, please…’tis for your safety that we—”

  “Mon capitaine!” called one of Matthieu’s men from afar. He rushed up, pushing through the line of soldiers. “Nous avons trouvé le garçon!”

  We found him.

  Ean’s anger drained away, replaced by a sense of relief that left him feeling empty. “Where?” he demanded, his shoulders sagging as he looked to the man.

  Cayal pushed through behind the Veneisean. “In his own armoire, my lord,” the soldier reported somewhat breathlessly. Upon seeing Ean’s confused expression, he added, “The lad was drugged, but he seems otherwise unharmed. He sleeps still.”

  Ean turned Matthieu a heated look. For all the man’s insistence that the boy remained upon the property, someone had gotten to him.

  Before Matthieu could respond, more shouting at the gate drew everyone’s attention, and just as Ean was lifting his gaze above the line of soldiers to attend the commotion, a huge explosion rocked the court and a ball of flame rocketed skyward, rimmed in smoke; the concussion sent everyone stumbling.

  In the next moment, Ean was running for the gate with Cayal and Matthieu’s men close on his heels. The prince led the way as the mass of soldiers pushed through the gates, but all drew up short on the street beyond.

  The building across from the estate was engulfed in flame. It seemed as if the entire three-story property had been doused in naphtha. Evil, acrid smoke billowed from third-floor windows and rooftop while wicked fire danced in the darkness.

  Matthieu immediately started shouting orders, sending his men scurrying for fire-buckets, brooms and sand, while others rushed to restore order in the street where a host of locals were funneling out of adjacent buildings only to mill in confusion and dismay.

  Ean heard a single scream emanate from among the roar of flames and was off like a shot across the street. He heard Matthieu calling urgently behind him, but nothing registered beyond the sound of terror in that scream and the sense of peril that compelled him to act.

  He had the presence of mind to place hands upon the front door before he kicked it in and dove into the smoke-filled room beyond. Billowing ash burned his throat with choking, acrid heat, but another such scream drew him deeper into the building. Finding his way almost blindly down a hall, he reached the end and kicked in another door. He blinked tears from his stinging eyes and finally focused to find a young girl and an even younger boy huddled in the far corner.

  It made no sense to find them inside when the rest of the place was deserted, and something of this strangeness registered in the back of Ean’s mind, but the terror of the scene took precedence in his thoughts. He rushed to gather the children, murmuring words of reassurance. The girl burst into terrified tears, and the little boy whimpered, but the prince cradled one in each arm and carried them out into the hall.

  “That way,” rasped the little girl, pointing toward the back of the building and a door at the far end. Ean rushed for it, coughing in the charred air, feeling the heat singeing down from the fiery layers above. He emerged from the building into the rear court just in time,for the roof of the hallway collapsed behind them with a scream of timbers, sending a fury of fiery air billowing out in chase.

  The concussion pitched Ean forward onto his knees, and the children pitched from his arms to land harmlessly on a plot of leaf-strewn grass.

  “See,” said a voice from behind as Ean pushed up, coughing and sputtering. “Told you it would work.”

  Something hard hit his head in a blinding flash, and he fell forward into darkness.

  ***

  The moon was on its decline as Fynn trod along the Rue de la Fontaine on his way to Le Lion et l’agneau, a popular gathering place of the gentry of Chalons-en-Les Trois. After their discussion among the candles, which Ean had cut short by a dramatic exodus, Matthieu had been no less demanding that Fynn remain upon the property as he had been of Ean—even going so far as to threaten to lock Fynn in his rooms if he attempted to leave. Fynn had let one of Matthieu’s men tail him the rest of the night, but he easily lost him when it was time to make his escape. The night called to him as it did to the nightingale, though Fynn was less inclined to sing until the wee hours of the morning.

  Usually he enjoyed his nocturnal excursions immensely—the anticipation of wine and women was a heady fragrance—but that night his stomach had that feeling again, the one that always told him to get out while he still could. What he’d once considered a boon felt more a curse in recent weeks, what with not being able to vacate the premises before Ean’s penchant for trouble and ill luck came calling. The only thing that dampened that damnable fluttering in his stomach was a good Volga, which increased his urgency to acquire the vintage. Not that he needed any reason for his daily libations—the glory of the substance itself was reason enough—but Fynn admitted that ‘imbibing for its medicinal value’ did have a nic
e ring to it.

  He was testing a fictional conversation with Alyneri in his head when his train of thought was disturbed by a doleful dirge floating from off to the east. Upon the near corner, a crossroad opened into a square filled with seated shapes, the culprits emitting the dismal tune.

  In the center of the small square, five roped columns stood atop a pentagonal-shaped marble slab. Though Fynn couldn’t see the steps leading up to the slab, hidden as they were beneath a host of candlelit offerings, he knew the roofless temple for what it was—a portal used by Nodefinders. The mourners in the square raised their voices somewhat disharmoniously as the dirge crescendoed to its gloomy end. A cloaked figure stood then and spoke to the group, but Fynn was too far away to make out the words. He didn’t need to hear them, for the message of the gathering was clear. All around the land people were mourning the Adept race.

  That’s a black irony, isn’t it? Fynn thought disagreeably as he continued on his way, leaving the mourners in the square to begin another lament. The Adept race is already dying, but now somebody’s all about hurrying them along on their way.

  Fynn knew the stories of the missing. Even before he’d left Agasan, the Empress had leveled strident regulations restricting the movement of Adepts in the empire ‘for their own protection,’ and it didn’t take much looking around to see how diminished mankind’s way of life had become. Never mind that mad Prophet Bethamin, his seditious doctrines, and freakish Marquiin—they were just salt in the wound. No, it was places like these, ancient places whose purposes had lost their meaning, relics of a richer day remembered by a dying few, that really brought the matter home.

  Once—long before Fynn’s day—the portals were in constant use, run by the Espial’s Guild. A man could travel from Veneisea to Faroqhar in a single afternoon. Now, such travels required a king’s ransom and friends within the Guild. There were barely enough Nodefinders to manage the affairs of queens and kings, much less merchant princes, who were relegated to such old-fashioned means of transporting their wares as wagon caravans and galleon ships.

  On the plus side, the pirating had really picked up.

  A rising wind accosted Fynn as he neared the end of the Rue de la Fontaine, but the breeze had cleared the heavy clouds off the moon, and Fynn’s eyes glowed with pleasure as the moonlit façade of his destination came into view. Thoughts of the Volga that awaited him quickly dispelled his somber mood, and the briskness returned to his step as he went forth to take his medicine.

  ***

  When Ean came to, he was in the back of a water-wagon wedged between sloshing barrels. Men were talking in the front, and he strained to hear them over the sound of clopping horse hooves, sloshing water, and the slow creaking of wood.

  “…hit him hard enough?” one man was asking in Veneisean.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” snapped a second.

  Ean was sure, too. His head was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach. He closed his eyes and tried to will the tumultous tumbling to settle.

  “The Karakurt claims he’s a wielder,” said the first.

  “And so?” returned the second. Ean heard the scrape of curtain hooks as the cloth separating the two compartments was drawn aside, and he was glad he’d already shut his eyes. “Doesn’t matter,” said the second after a moment, closing the curtain again. “I bound him so tight, he’d have to be a shapeshifter to get out of it.”

  “I still think you should’ve hit him harder,” the first grumbled.

  In the following quiet, Ean discovered what the second man meant, for his attempt to move any body part south of his chin resulted in nary the slightest motion. The working was quite a different feeling from the Shade’s binding compulsion. Ean could feel his toes, he could tense the muscles in his legs and arms—clearly they were still under his volition—but to move them from their position was quite beyond him.

  Bound then…but how?

  In that moment, it occurred to him that he was again being taken—spirited away from his companions, from those who would help him. Again trapped, again in mortal peril.

  He couldn’t allow that. He wouldn’t.

  It was the second time that desperation—necessity—drew out the ability so deeply hidden it seemed merely born of instinct; the second time he began to see the pattern standing between himself and freedom.

  This pattern was sharp-edged and knotty, all angles juxtaposed upon one another. It was an ugly, unnatural pattern, and Ean knew it was what he must unwork if he meant to be free of these men.

  He concentrated upon his task, but this pattern was not so easily undone. Even the malevolent spell upon the Marquiin had been easier to access—no doubt its owner had never anticipated anyone trying to find and unwork it—while this pattern was clearly created to never be undone. Each jagged knot was painful to explore—as treacherous as a razor-edged barb and just as dense, and there were many of them.

  Ean started sweating and his head pounded viciously every time he sent his consciousness again and again along the knife-edged planes, seeking where the pattern began and ended. But he only succeeded in ripping his mind to shreds, and finally he abandoned the task, exhausted and spent, the pain too great to endure any longer.

  It was then, as he lay defeated with his mind bleeding freely upon his frustration, that the pattern suddenly became clear.

  It’s like the strings of a marionette, all broken and crumbled. But instead of tensile strings, the puppet that was his body had been connected by slender straws, all of them now tangled and bent back upon themselves.

  It must be in the center, he realized, like the whole thing imploded, drawing all of its parts inward.

  So Ean looked there, in the densest mass of mangled straws, his bruised mind probing gingerly among the tangled mess, and at last he found that nebulous point where the pattern both began and ended.

  He attempted to take hold of the end of the pattern then, but his throbbing skull and the nausea in his stomach kept distracting him, making the thread as slippery as a mud-covered eel. To make matters worse, the wagon swung around a corner, and Ean’s head thudded into the wooden side, sending a flare of pain down his neck and spine and nearly pitching him back into unconsciousness. Only by force of will did he hold onto awareness. He clung to the pain, clutching it close, letting its heat fuel his determination. Finally, after several deep breaths, he felt some clarity returning.

  Drawing in the breath of his will this time, the prince grabbed the end of that mental thread with fierce resolve, half expecting it to elude him yet again. But the pattern held, and after a moment’s assurance that he did in fact have hold of it, Ean started his unworking. Without knowing why, as he unraveled the convoluted spell, he wrapped the falling threads around one mental hand, like winding in a ball of string.

  It wasn’t long before he could move his feet, then his knees, legs, his fingers…finally he had the last of it in hand, the very beginning of the pattern, the final lingering touch of its force holding his head to the wooden boards. Ean pulled with all his determination and strength combined, straining to lift the final piece of the spell…

  He felt it release, and he exhaled a great, shuddering breath of relief.

  In his mind’s eye, he now held a diffuse ball of energy, but in actual fact, he held the entire pattern conceptually within his grasp. He wasn’t sure quite what to do with it, so he cast it spiraling away from him with a mental shove.

  The men in front were silent as Ean rolled onto hands and knees. Being careful to make no sound, he slithered between the barrels toward the back of the wagon. By providence alone, just as he was climbing over the low rear of the wagon, he caught the glint of a familiar jewel protruding from beneath the struts supporting one of the barrels.

  Epiphany must be watching over me after all, and he snatched his sword just as the weight of his falling body pulled him free of the wagon. Ean hit the cobblestones and rolled, hugging his sword flat against his chest. Then he scrambled into the shadows. He sat back ag
ainst the plastered wall, resting his head and watching warily as the horse-drawn wagon continued on down the hill and out of sight.

  He lingered there long enough to catch his breath and be certain he wasn’t going to throw up. Blood felt sticky and damp on his neck, and a stupor threatened at the edges of his awareness. He knew it would be all too easy to slip into its welcoming embrace. Get up.Get up.Get up.

  Ean pushed to his feet unsteadily and braced himself with a hand on the wall as he looked around. The merchant street was barren of people, and its dilapidated shops were shuttered for the night. On a far corner several blocks away, Ean saw the wan light of a tavern spilling across the broken cobblestones. It was in the downhill direction, however, and he knew that the comte’s estates crowned the city heights.

  Pulling up the hood of his cloak, Ean hunched against the pain in his head and headed off.

  ***

  The moon was on its decline as Fynn lounged by the fire in the private game room of Le Lion et l’agneau. Velvet-upholstered couches and low settees adorned the long room, most of them decorated with local courtesans and their patrons. While Fynn admired the view, he more enjoyed the establishment’s selection of superior Volgas, one of which he was just then appreciating with every long, languorous sip.

  He’d closed his eyes to better appreciate the complex flavor—blackberry, stone fruits, the slightest hint of chocolate—when a shadow befell him. He was forced to abandon his vision of bathing in a pool of wine while ten wanton beauties fought over who got to sex him up next—Because, let’s face it, what good is a virgin who doesn’t know shite about pleasing a man?—in order to see who’d come calling.

  Feeling cheated out of his vision, Fynn opened his eyes with a rebuke on the edge of his tongue, but when he saw the beauty standing over him, he wondered if he was still somehow in the dream.

  “Bonsoir, my lord,” said the striking brunette. She caught one fingernail in the corner of her mouth and swept him with large hazel eyes, adding in her native Veneisean, “Vous êtes tout seul?”