The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (16 page)

“Yes,” Tanis muttered, “so he told me.”

The Fhorg led him to the second floor of the sprawling manor and down a hallway where the rooms were larger and more elegantly appointed. He paused before an open doorway. “In there y’go. Yer new room. Off w’ye now.”

Tanis headed inside a sitting room with a small balcony that fronted the sea and the storm. A serving woman was just coming out of his bed chamber as Tanis reached the door, and she pointed inside and nodded, saying something in a language that sounded, to Tanis’s uneducated ear, like some dialect of Agasi. He walked in the direction of her pointing finger and found a hot bath had been drawn and a fire burning in the hearth.

I suppose a nice bedroom is the reward for becoming Pelas’s new
truthreader
, the lad thought with a fearful shudder.

The idea really made him cold inside.

Tanis quickly climbed into the tub. He didn’t even mind that the water was scalding enough to turn his skin pink. He was still soaking when the maidservant returned carrying a bundle of packages. Leaving him to his bath, she went about her business in an orderly fashion, unwrapping each of the bundles and hanging the clothes they contained in the armoire. She laid out an outfit upon the bed, draped a robe over a chair for him, and gave him a naughty wink as she left.

He blushed a little in spite of himself.

When his skin was as wrinkled and shriveled as a prune and he’d scrubbed away all the detritus from his first hellish confrontation with Pelas, Tanis reluctantly climbed out of the tub. He reflected that it
was
nice to feel clean. His lady was always going on about bathing, but Tanis had never truly appreciated the benefits of hot water until he’d had to scrub off three-day-old blood.

Then he shuddered at his own grim thoughts.

The maidservant had chosen a fine silk shirt and wool pants for him, but the jacket really caught his attention. It was as fine as the beautiful coat Prince Ean had given him, though very different in style. The brown damask silk was woven in a recurring
fleur de lis
pattern, and the sleeves were belled like Pelas’s own coat. The bottom hem flared slightly, and when Tanis put it on, it fit him almost too well. This was definitely not a coat for everyday use, which only made the boy more uneasy wondering what Pelas had in store for him that day.

Tanis had just managed to get a comb through his dark blonde hair, which he admitted was getting long and a bit shaggy, when Pelas came in. He wore his shiny black hair pulled back into a plaited club at the base of his neck and looked incredibly sophisticated and refined.

“Ah, good,” he said, remarking upon Tanis’s improved condition. “Is the coat to your liking?”

Tanis dropped his eyes to his hands. “It is very fine, sir. Thank you.”

“Of course, it is your due. You cannot be seen with me dressed in bloodied rags. What will people think?”

Tanis couldn’t tell if Pelas was teasing him or not, but he sensed a dry humor in the man’s tone.

“Are you ready, little spy?”

Tanis bent and put on his boots, taking care with the one that still concealed his dagger. “Ready for what, sir?”

“For the day ahead.”

“I don’t know,” Tanis answered uneasily. “That depends.”

Pelas gave him a curious half smile. “On what?”

Tanis straightened and regarded him fretfully. “On whether or not you’re planning to torture and kill anyone today.”

Pelas considered him with his coppery eyes. “You really are an interesting little bird, aren’t you? I would love to know what my brother would think of you, save that it would be entirely too dangerous for you to meet him.”

Tanis caught something of his thoughts in this statement and braved the question, “For me, sir, or for you?”

Pelas gave him a wondering look. “For both of us, I believe. You really can read my mind,” he added appreciatively then. “How interesting that none of the Marquiin have ever managed it.”

“Their talent has been corrupted by Bethamin’s Fire,” Tanis said without thinking, only remembering his foray into Piper’s thoughts and what he’d perceived from the Marquiin who’d died in his arms back in Acacia.

The sudden fury in Pelas’s gaze made Tanis take a reflexive step backwards. “What do you know of the Marquiin?” he hissed.

Tanis felt trapped beneath his gaze. Noting the dangerous shift in the man’s temperament, Tanis hurried to explain, “It’s not what you’re thinking, sir.” He knew how Pelas loathed his brother Darshan’s intervention in his activities and suspected everyone of being Darshan’s spy. “When our company was traveling through Acacia on our way to the Cairs,” Tanis confessed, stumbling slightly in his haste to form the words, “my lady and I were taken hostage and handed over to an Ascendant. I was supposed to be tested, only…”

“Only it didn’t work?” Pelas concluded, his manner thankfully softening.

“Yes, sir. The Ascendant was furious and he and the Marquiin started fighting.”

Pelas was fascinated now. He threw himself down into a near armchair and extended long legs before him. “Tell me, how did you escape them?”

“Prince—” Tanis immediately regretted his loose tongue, but it was out there now. Wincing, Tanis finished, “Prince Ean showed up and rescued us.”

“Prince Ean…” Pelas mused, “and which one would he be? There are so many princes in this realm.”

“He’s the Prince of Dannym,” Tanis told him, fretful that Pelas would know something of the name, but he seemed entirely unimpressed by it.

“But this does not explain how you know what my brother does to create the Marquiin, young spy.”

“I’ll tell you what I know sir, of course I will, but…it’s just…”

Pelas gave him a tolerant look. “But?”

“Well, I
do
have a name,” he grumbled.

Pelas grinned at him. “Do you?”

“Yes. It’s Tanis.”

“But I rather like the epithet I gave you. It seems entirely too fitting to discard it for something so trite as a name anyone might know.”

Tanis sighed. “Yes, sir.”

“Come then.”  Pelas launched himself out of the chair and headed off. “You can tell me of your deep knowledge of the Marquiin over breakfast.”

Tanis caught up with him in the hall. Pelas was tall and long-legged, and he was as difficult to keep up with as Rhys or the zanthyr. As Tanis hurried along beside him, he noted that Pelas wore an aubergine coat of the same cut and cloth as Tanis’s own. Clearly they were both headed somewhere important that day.

“I tire of the storm,” Pelas remarked as they descended the manor’s grand staircase. “Let us break our fast somewhere that has seen the sun at some point this century.”

With that, he took Tanis’s upper arm and tugged him to stop. Tanis watched him concentrate upon a distant point in the room, and then he saw a silver line spear down through the air. The line broadened to reveal a glossy blackness, but Tanis didn’t have time even to formulate a fearful thought before they were into it and the darkness enveloped him completely. If not for Pelas’s firm hold upon his arm, Tanis would’ve thought himself lost out of time.

A heartbeat later, another line split down out of the nothingness, and Pelas ushered him out into an alley. A slim band of blue sky showed overhead as Pelas guided him between tall buildings and out onto a wide cobblestone street. It was still early morning wherever they were. Merchants were just setting up their carts or opening stores. All around him Tanis heard a strange language. He wasn’t familiar enough with languages to know for certain which one it was, though it might’ve been Agasi.

Pelas drew in a deep breath and sighed happily. “Much improved. Come, little spy, I know a place that makes excellent meat pies, and their wine is unmatched.”

“Where are we, sir?” Tanis asked as he walked at Pelas’s side down the increasingly busy street.

Pelas turned to him with a smile, and Tanis realized that he was actually nice-looking—handsome even, in a darkly exotic way. His copper eyes could seem quite mysterious and intriguing when they weren’t harboring maniacal intentions. “The Solvayre,” Pelas told him. “You’ve heard of the region, no doubt?”

“Yes, but…” he frowned, confused. “You didn’t travel upon a node just then.”

Pelas arched a sly brow and cast him a sideways look. “Do I seem a Nodefinder to you?”

“No,” Tanis muttered. It was not a heartening thought to know Malorin’athgul could skip around the realm at will. How were they traveling if not on the nodes? What was that black place? “If not the nodes, sir, then how?”

“Now, now, little spy,” Pelas said, shooting him a grin, “you have only just gained my good graces. That is far too soon to be asking such important questions. You haven’t earned those answers by any stretch.”

Well, it had been worth a try.

They broke their fast at a winery’s café. The patio overlooked the vineyard, which spread in tailored rows across the near rolling hills. “Sir,” Tanis said when they were done with their meal and enjoying the vineyard’s rich wine beneath a strong winter sun, “if you can travel anywhere without the nodes, why not just bring us right to this café?”

Pelas was sitting with his long legs extended to the side of their table and looking out over the rows of potted flowers toward the hills and a long line of cypress trees. His long nose, which was slightly rounded like the Bemothi nobility, accentuated his almond-shaped eyes and elegant brow. Tanis was so confused by his manner, which was so…likeable now, so incongruous with the version of the man he’d first met.

“Perhaps I appreciate the walk,” Pelas replied, casting him a sideways glance. “Did you never think of that?”

“No,” Tanis grumbled. “It seemed too benign.”

Pelas chucked. “There are things to be observed in this world, little spy,” he said. “I told you that. I’m in no hurry to destroy it.”

“You seemed awfully hurried the other night,” Tanis pointed out, feeling unexpectedly resentful of Pelas’s callous and disconnected view.

Pelas turned to look straight at him, and something shifted in his gaze. It was like a lamp suddenly coming to light—or in this case, being instantly extinguished, replaced by a crushing darkness. The feeling of menace that overcame Pelas’s thoughts made the hairs rise on Tanis’s arms, and the boy was suddenly pinned to his chair just like at the café in Rethynnea. “That is my work,” Pelas murmured, but the man Tanis had just been speaking with was far away now, replaced by an alarming personage that shouted his crimes with rivers of blood. “Sometimes…” Pelas whispered, scaring Tanis with his change of manner, “most times…it overtakes me.”  Then the moment was past, the beast retreating to its dark lair, and Pelas turned to gaze idly across the hills as if nothing had happened.

Tanis sucked in his breath in a little gasp, for he’d been quite too afraid to breathe. That Pelas could so readily become that
other
…it was terrifying.

“So…” Pelas remarked then, casting Tanis an inquisitive look. “What do you know of the Marquiin?”

Tanis was still trembling a little, but he could tell the beast was caged now and the likable man returned, so he answered hesitantly, “The Marquiin who tried to test me died in my arms.”  Tanis didn’t like to remember those moments, for the man had been releasing all of the torment of several years into his expiring thoughts. Yet…something in the way Pelas asked the question made Tanis feel like he had to answer it. It felt similar to a truthreader’s compulsion, yet it was more like a quiet threat…a very clear, very real threat, like a stiletto pressed to your temple. Too, this threat came from the lucid Pelas, the one who was otherwise amiable and even kind in his way, which only made the threat all the more potent.

The boy realized what he was sensing was the talent of a skilled interrogator. Pelas’s power, whatever it was, did not merely compel Tanis to answer, it made him
want
to tell him all.

Helpless to resist, Tanis forced himself to remember that night, though it pained him greatly to dwell in those moments. “It’s just…perceptions, really,” he said then, glancing up to find Pelas regarding him intently.

“I’m interested in your perceptions.” 

Tanis whetted his lips. “Very well. I…I’m not sure, but I think that the Prophet’s power corrupts a truthreader’s mind, and it only follows that this would inhibit his ability to wield
elae
. The Marquiin…”  Tanis paused and rubbed uneasily at one eye. “Well… Prince Ean restored him in the end, and I saw some of his thoughts as he died. I didn’t wholly understand them, but it seemed like he’d been under some sort of fourth-strand compulsion. I don’t think he could actually work the fourth any more at all, even though it should’ve been within his nature as an Adept.” Tanis looked up at Pelas feeling heartbroken all over again. “Once Bethamin’s Fire took him, he lost all contact with
elae
.”

“So
that’s
how he’s doing it,” Pelas murmured, eyes alight. “Oh, Darshan…”  Abruptly he focused on Tanis again. “This Prince Ean, the prince you served, he’s a wielder?”

Tanis shrugged. “I don’t really know what he is. I think he’s still trying to figure that out himself.”