The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (111 page)

Raine wasn’t sure exactly what the creature was apologizing for, but Björn seemed to understand. “Influence, not interference, my friend. It is the most we can do.”

“
Rad nath, ma dieul
,” intoned the Shade. His form faded until only the memory of it remained.

“And what of your thoughts, brother?” Björn inquired then, turning his gaze upon Raine.

The truthreader looked to where his oath-brother stood before the tall windows, framed by the storm raging in the world he made. There was a grave beauty to Björn van Gelderan in any temperament, but especially when he smiled, as he was doing just then.

Still marveling on the unreality of his current existence, Raine shrugged. “Isabel has chosen to go with Ean. Whatever the reasons behind her choice, I trust her decisions.” Then he added with a wry smile, “Truly, I think I would rather face down the Malorin’athgul than cross your sister once she’s made up her mind about the path she intends to follow.”

“Wise, Raine,” Björn murmured. He turned to look back out at the storm. “Very wise indeed.”

“To him who is determined, it remains only to act.”

- Ramuhárikhamáth, Lord of the Heavens

Ean frowned
into the rain. The storm seemed a mirror of his mood, of his very temperament: turbulent and brooding, violent, reckless, haphazardly attacking the world; making up for what it lacked in strategy by the force of its determined effort.

“Come, Ean.” Isabel called him away from the window and held up the last of his garments to be donned ere their departure.

He joined her in front of a long standing mirror, whereupon she helped him into a heavy suede vest lined in fleece and then fastened on his baldric and belt. Ean realized just how long it had been since he felt the familiar weight of his sword at his hip. He hadn’t exactly missed it—he certainly hadn’t needed it in T’khendar, only wishing he’d had it a time or two that he might’ve used it to beat Markal.

Yet seeing the sword at his side again brought thoughts of the zanthyr, and the recognition that, like Isabel’s staff, Phaedor had constructed this sword especially for him. 

Looking at the baldric in the mirror, at his father’s sigil so vividly embossed in the leather, Ean felt a pang of regret. It seemed a different man’s accoutrement suddenly…another man’s life.

Isabel settled his navy cloak upon his shoulders and fastened the elaborate clasp. “There,” she said, smiling up at him. “You look yourself again.”

Ean gazed past her to take in his reflection. Cinnamon hair fell across grey eyes, and longer strands framed a lean jaw shaded with scruff. The charcoal clothes he wore were not the garments of a prince, but the blade he carried was. “Do I?” he asked as he stared into his own eyes. “I’m not sure I even know what that means.”

“S
imple words,” she replied with a knowing smile. “You make them too complex.” 

Ean shook his head. He’d thought for certain that piercing the veil and regaining Arion’s memories—even partially—would’ve restored some sense of self, that he would now become this other person who was bold and defiant and calmly confident of his power. Instead, he felt just as confused as ever about who he really was and what he should do. The only thing that seemed to have grown more certain was his potential to harm those he loved.

“Isabel,” he murmured miserably, staring at their combined reflection, which seemed suddenly the only thing that wasn’t spinning in a whirlwind of guilt, “how can you know me so completely when I barely know myself?”

“I have the benefit of never
having lost my memory, my lord.” 

H
e turned to her and took her hand. “You torment me,” he breathed, closing his eyes and pressing lips to her captured palm. “Today of all days, I cannot bear it.”

She let him have her hand
. “But do you not know me equally, my lord?” she posed in reply, her mouth teasing his tormented gaze with a smile suggestive of all they’d shared. “Did not your soul know mine in the first moment of reunion?” 

“Yes,” he admitted, because it was true.

“Would you deny our history, the recognition that we feel in each other?”

“No
. Never.”

She
slipped her hand free of his and placed it upon his cheek instead. “You put too much importance on the man that you once were and not enough on the one you are becoming.” She gave him a kiss then and slid her fingers beneath his chin as she turned away, inviting him to follow her out of their apartments.

Their things had already been taken in preparation for departure, and now Isabel led
Ean to the Nodes. That Isabel accompanied him both comforted and disturbed him, for while he could not conceive of walking his path without her, still, he would be constantly concerned for her safety.

Down the endless hallway, they slipped through a door that looked like all the others and emerged into an open meadow. Judging from the long grass damp with rain, Ean assumed the storm had already passed through this part of the world. Now a moon just shy of full bathed them in alternating shadow, shining intermittently through a clearing sky to illuminate a wide meadow.

Where the Lord of the Heavens awaited.

“Ean,” Ramu greeted as they approached, “knowing how you struggle with memory, I would share with you some of my experience in battling wielders of the Fourth Age. If you would hear it.”

“I welcome your advice, my lord,” Ean returned. While he’d regained much with Markal that afternoon, still he knew he had literal ages yet to reclaim of Arion Tavestra’s knowledge, and anticipating the conflict to come was making him tense and edgy. He took Isabel’s hand in his for some small comfort as the three of them walked through the meadow.

Ramu began, “Always search for patterns before advancing,” and thereafter embarked upon what became a litany of vital cautions so exhaustive that Ean was soon struggling to remember them all. “Keep your thoughts warded at all times. Do not use
elae
when the strength of men will suffice. Never let yourself fall beneath a compulsion pattern. Always keep the lifeforce within your grasp. Stay guarded against the Labyrinth…” 

As Ramu rattled off the ever-lengthening list, Ean felt each as a painful echo of his past mistakes.

  “I need likely not remind you to never use the fifth when the fourth will suffice,” Ramu said as they neared the crest of the hill they’d been climbing, “for when you wage the fifth in combat, you walk the knife-edge of Balance over an abyss from which there is no return.” His dark gaze was compelling as he added, “Make no mistake, Ean—no manner of craft will save you from this abyss should you falter.”

Ean felt this truth too nearly, believing he had violated it more than once to grave and wretched consequence.

“If you do intend to work the fifth,” Isabel noted from his other side, “you must be alert to patterns within patterns, for wielders who cannot work the fifth are ever wary of those who can.” 

“Just so,” Ramu agreed. “Fourth Age wielders especially developed all manner of traps to ensnare a fifth-strand Adept or any wielder who dared attempt use the fifth in combat.”

Ean turned him a puzzled look. “Do we know this wielder cannot use the fifth?”

“If he could, he no doubt would’ve used it against Rhakar,” Ramu replied, “and their reasonably amicable encounter would’ve ended differently.”

Ean frowned at him. “But if Rhakar was there, why didn’t…” The question hung unspoken, for he realized even in the asking that it would go unanswered. Whatever role the
drachwyr
played in the First Lord’s game, it didn’t involve saving Ean’s friends.

The whole situation reeked of wrongness.

Why were they letting him walk off into an obvious trap unaided? How did they expect him to succeed without help? Too well he remembered his promise to hunt down the Shade who he believed had slain Creighton…how he’d threatened to take on the Fifth Vestal all on his own! It was testimony to Raine’s forbearance that he hadn’t laughed that brash young prince from the room. Yet here now Björn was sending him off to pursue an equally outlandish and uncertain course, with consequences just as devastating.

Events seemed to be spinning out of his control. He would’ve like to have had Rhakar’s blade at his side.

They rounded the hilltop and came in view of two men standing beside a pair of horses, one dark, the other silver-pale in the moonlight. Ean’s heart did a little jump upon recognizing the horse’s silhouette.

“Caldar?” He released Isabel’s hand and jogged across the meadow to greet his proud stallion, who neighed and tossed his head as Ean neared. The prince slipped an arm around the stallion’s neck and stroked his nose, murmuring astonished hellos, so overwhelmed to see his treasured horse in such an unlikely place.  

Eventually he recalled himself and turned to the two men who were waiting with the horses—Dagmar and Franco Rohre.

“Ean,” the Second Vestal said warmly then, “I see you found an old friend.”

Ean looked at him in open wonder while he rubbed the stallion’s nose. “Is this your work, my lord?” He spared a glance for Isabel, who was coming up beside him, and reached for her hand.

“Sadly, I had little part in this happy reunion—only to bring your mounts from the stables.” 

Isabel placed her hand on Caldar’s nose in silent greeting and observed quietly as she did, “You will surely know the source of Caldar’s presence here if you but think upon it, Ean.”

Indeed, it was the work of a bare moment to conclude the only possible
who
, though it brought no understanding of
how
. Exhaling a perplexed sigh, Ean shook his head and noted to no one in particular, “He never ceases to bewilder, does he?” He didn’t think he would ever understand the depths of Phaedor’s foresight.

Isabel blessed him with a smile by way of understanding
. Then she gave her attention to Dagmar. “We are ready.”

“As are we, my lady. Franco has completed the work. It was good practice before tackling the Sylus node, I dare say, and well done.”

Franco grimaced, but he managed a muttered, “Thank you, my lord.”

“What work is this?” Ean asked.

“Rerouting a node between the realms,” Dagmar said with a broad smile of approval.

Ean arched brows at Franco. “You can do such a thing?”

When Franco merely grimaced in answer, Dagmar chuckled and clapped the Espial on this back, offering on his behalf, “Tis neither a task to be undertaken lightly nor by the faint of heart.”

“Would that mine had been less stalwart,” Franco lamented. “I might’ve avoided the assignment altogether for fear of my heart stopping permanently.”

Isabel turned her blindfolded gaze to the Espial. “None have proven more capable or faithful, Franco. Do not doubt yourself so.”

“I fear the virus has reached the marrow, my lady,” Franco returned grimly. “It is too deep to be killed off now.”

She reached a hand to cup his cheek. “There is more than one way to cleanse a man of his malaise,” she promised with an enigmatic smile that was portent and absolution both.

Unsurprisingly, this sentiment did not seem to cheer him in the least.

“Well then,” said Dagmar with his usual robust humor, “let us proceed.”

Saying farewell to Franco and Ramu, Ean and Isabel took their reins in hand, and then Dagmar was ushering them across the node.

They emerged beneath moonlit darkness into a snowbound wilderness of luminous ice. A bracing wind swarmed around them, whereupon Ean became instantly grateful that Isabel had made him bring his heavy cloak and fur-lined gloves. Blinking into the stinging wind, Ean saw a man approaching out of the snow-filled darkness.

Tall and broad of shoulder, his silhouette struck so similar a form to Rinokh’s that Ean was at once transported to that fateful night the Malorin’athgul had invaded their camp. The prince stiffened in alarm, but Isabel placed a calming hand upon his arm, and he realized that of course this could not be Rinokh. Still, the unsettling vision and the painful memories it had evoked did not immediately depart.

“I entrust you to capable hands, my lady,” Dagmar murmured, indicating Rhakar as the latter neared.

Isabel kissed Dagmar’s cheek to show her gratitude.

Dagmar nodded to both of them by way of farewell and vanished with a backwards step.

“My lady Isabel,” came a deep voice, and Ean turned to find the Sundragon closing in on them.

Up close, with his jet-black hair and slightly rounded nose, Rhakar resembled Ramu more than Rinokh. But Rhakar’s features were fiercer than his brother’s, with a heavy brow hooding penetrating yellow eyes. He had the sort of build that lent itself to power over grace, yet he moved as agilely as the zanthyr. 

Isabel squeezed Ean’s hand. “Ean, may I
present Şrivas’rhakárakek, Shadow of the Light.” 

“My lord,” Ean greeted with a slight bow.

Rhakar looked him over with one sweep of his fiery eyes. “You are like your brother,” he remarked in a deep voice somehow reminiscent of a waterfall’s elemental thunder, “the one I found in the well. The First Lord thinks very highly of that one to have sent us in search.”