The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (17 page)

“Fascinating.” Pelas shook his head wondrously. “Who knew when you appeared out of nowhere that you would prove such an intriguing diversion!”

Tanis frowned at him. “I’m honored to provide your entertainment, Sir.”

Pelas leveled him a quiet look. “Better this kind than the other.”

At which point Tanis paled considerably.

Pelas drank more of his wine and eyed Tanis over the rim. “And what of your parentage, young spy? Perhaps that will tell us something of your nature and why you are immune both to my power and Bethamin’s Fire.”

Tanis shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I know nothing of my parents.”

“Nothing?” Pelas leaned toward him. “I sense more than nothing in your thoughts.”

Tanis caught his lip between his teeth and gave him a tense look. Pelas demanded the whole truth, and the lad was helpless to keep from giving it. Whatever power Pelas wielded over him was agonizingly effective—but the man was requiring such private thoughts…every secret felt a bitter sacrifice.

“You’re correct, sir,” Tanis whispered finally, dropping his eyes to the goblet of wine sitting on the table before him. “I do know a…little more.” Tanis fought the urge to speak with every fiber of his being, but Pelas’s power drew it out of him. “I know that my mother and father lived by the sea. I know she was a truthreader and that my father called her Renaii.”

Pelas sat silent for a long time, considering him, while Tanis suffered a sick feeling in his stomach…consequence of giving in to whatever ill manner of power Pelas had been working upon him. He imagined this is the way one might feel after taking of an opiate and succumbing to pleasures debased and reviled. His self-respect lay crumpled in a sullied heap, stained with fluids better left unidentified. He hated the man in that moment for ripping the truth out of him so heartlessly.

Yet how does this differ from a truthreader’s working?
he had to wonder. In truth, there was probably very little difference save that a truthreader had kings and queens justifying his actions when he tore the truth forcefully out of a man.

“Renaii,” Pelas finally said, pressing a long finger against his lips. “I know that word. Do you?”

Tanis shook his head.

“It means ‘light of my soul’ in Old Alæic, the first language of this world, that of the zanthyrs and the
drachwyr
…among others.”

Tanis frowned. “I was told it was an Agasi name.”

“I suppose it is—it’s also a term of endearment, like ‘darling’ or ‘my love’ yet revealing of deeper affection and regard.” He glanced to the sky and the sun at its zenith. “But look, it will be nearing sunset where we’re heading, and I do believe the party will be starting soon.” Pelas stood and looked down at him in a way that seemed almost friendly. “What do you say, little spy? Shall we be fashionably late?”

Right then, Tanis was loathing himself for following Pelas anywhere, but he went with him nonetheless.

“
A brave man is one who recognizes Death waiting upon the path and walks with him anyway.”

- The Second Vestal Dagmar Ranneskjöld

Kjieran van Stone
woke to a pounding on his door in the dead of night. He stumbled out of bed and threw the bolt to find an Ascendant waiting on the other side. A pageboy behind him held a torch, his eyes downcast.

“Yes, Ascendant?” Kjieran asked, keeping his eyes equally on the floor.

“The Prophet calls for you, acolyte.”

Kjieran’s heart leapt into a panic. “I should…I should dress,” he said.

“No, come as you are. Dare not keep the Prophet waiting.”

Kjieran wore naught but thin linen breeks, but he followed all the same. One simply did not question Bethamin’s Ascendants, and especially not within the confines of the temple.

To Kjieran’s rising horror, the Ascendant led him toward the Prophet’s private chambers. A multitude of fears bombarded him upon this realization, and he followed with effort, just concentrating on placing one foot before the other. It wouldn’t do to stumble and give the Ascendant reason to question his faith.

You’re still thinking you might come out of there intact.

Kjieran knew hope grew in scarce commodity in the Tempe of Tambarré, but he could do no less than cling to its fragile stalk. He held the last bastion between Bethamin and the world, and duty bound him to this task, even if it meant his death. This he had long accepted. He just hoped it would
be
death and not one of the many other eternal torments the Prophet meted as due reward to the faithful.

The towering doors that marked the Prophet’s chambers stood open upon their arrival, but the Ascendant stopped just without. “Go now, acolyte,” he ordered stiffly. “The Prophet awaits.”

Kjieran kept his gaze on his feet and headed into the Prophet’s private dwelling, cringing as he heard the doors close behind him. He pushed a hand to smooth back his shoulder-length black hair and braved a look around.

The chamber was large and open on one side to the breeze, while a vast room spread away to the left, its tall ceilings supported by rounded columns inscribed with strange writing that Kjieran thought might be the language of Myacene, from whence the Prophet hailed. Through this room he made his way, seeing no one until he reached the end and an octagonal antechamber. It was there that the Prophet sat, bare-chested, one arm thrown over the back of a canvas chair with his long legs splayed before him.

“Come, Kjieran,” came the Prophet’s resonant voice.

Kjieran tried to hide his rising unease as he approached. He kept his eyes on his feet, yet still he felt the Prophet’s gaze upon him like the razor edge of an icy knife. In each moment that Kjieran endured Bethamin’s inspection, he could feel the knife caressing his skin as if determining which places were most likely to yield to gentle pressure and which would require a coordinated attack.

With downcast eyes, Kjieran saw the Prophet rise from his chair. In a moment he felt his frozen hands upon his bare shoulders, and the Prophet turned him to face the side of the octagonal room. Bethamin’s cold hands slipped from his shoulders then and came around onto his chest in a sort of embrace. Kjieran stifled a gasp and drew in a shuddering breath. “Look there, Kjieran,” the Prophet said from behind him, his breath a chill breeze in Kjieran’s ear.

Trembling, Kjieran lifted his eyes to look across the room, and there he saw a naked man lying face down upon the marble tiles. It was hard to know how he’d died, for this time there was no blood. Kjieran had cleaned up after many encounters that had not ended so neatly.

“I am most interested in this thing you call desire,” the Prophet observed then. “I’ve been studying it lately.”  He grasped his own elbows around Kjieran’s bare chest as he held him close. The touch of his flesh was the bitter north wind, and Kjieran kept himself tense that the Prophet might not notice him shaking too badly. “It seems a wasted use of one’s energies,” Bethamin continued, “yet your kind appear to thrive on it.”

“Yes, my lord,” Kjieran whispered.

“How does one create desire, Kjieran?” the Prophet asked earnestly. “What is it, in your view?”

Kjieran knew better than to answer the Prophet with something he imagined the man would want to hear. There was no predicting his mind. “Desire is a quest, my lord,” he said after a moment, working hard to keep his teeth from chattering.

“A quest for what?”  The Prophet sounded honestly intrigued.

“For…for pleasure,” he offered in a bare whisper, so afraid that at any moment the man would desire something more of him.

“What is pleasure then?” asked the Prophet. “Is seems to me this nebulous idea takes many forms, and all of them equally useless when death is the only end.”

“Perhaps…”  Kjieran tried to draw in a breath, but he was shaking so dreadfully. All he managed was a gasp. “P-perhaps it is just a way of p-passing the hours until death,” he whispered.

“My doctrine,” the Prophet stated, clearly displeased with this answer. He drew away from Kjieran, releasing him. “I mislike platitudes drawn from my own teachings.”

Kjieran swayed in place, so cold and so terrified he could hardly breathe. “I’m sorry, my lord.”

The Prophet took hold of Kjieran’s jaw and lifted his head to look upon his face. Kjieran closed his eyes and prayed like he’d never prayed in his life. “I have seen your faces when desire is upon them,” the Prophet observed as he studied Kjieran’s countenance with his darkly scalding eyes. “But I have not been able to engender it myself. Some emotions are so simple—fear, anger, desperation, these you seem to find easily. But desire…that it eludes my understanding makes it intriguing. I would know it better, Kjieran.”

“Yes, my lord,” Kjieran whispered.

The Prophet ran his thumb across Kjieran’s lips, the soft kiss of ice. “What do you desire, Kjieran?”

The compulsion to answer was so complete that only Raine’s earlier binding saved him from telling everything. “To please you, my lord,” he heard himself reply in a desperate gasp. Did he really mean to say it, or had Bethamin dragged it out of him? He honestly didn’t know.

The Prophet released him. “You see, it is empty when I require it, but I know there is desire in you.”

Kjieran dropped his head and stared hard at his feet, fervently wishing he might be anywhere else.

The Prophet returned to his chair radiating restlessness and malcontent. After a moment, he asked, “If I don’t require it of you, what answer will I get from you Kjieran? The same?”

“Do you…wish me to desire you, my lord?” Kjieran braved.

The Prophet was silent for a long time, considering this question. “An intriguing concept,” he finally replied. “Am I something to be desired?”

Trapped in this, Kjieran answered, “Desire takes many forms, my lord.”

“Ah, a safe conclusion. You hide from me. Why?”

Kjieran nearly cried for wanting to answer him
because you rape our minds and destroy everything that we are!
But he answered truthfully, “Because I fear you, my lord.”

“Yes, fear,” the Prophet grumbled. “That one is easily managed. Here then, we return to the first question. What is it you truly desire, Kjieran? What drives that fire within you which I have so often seen in other men’s eyes? How do I waken it in you?”

The Prophet laid no compulsion upon him that time, and Kjieran knew this was a gift from him, the gift of his trust. He also knew that should he disappoint the man with his answer, it might be the last thing he ever did. So he drew in a tremulous breath and answered honestly, feeling stripped and naked in the telling, “Freedom, my lord.”

“Freedom,” the Prophet repeated, his voice resonating in the chamber, which stood empty save for themselves and the dead man on the floor. Bethamin rose again from his chair, and once more Kjieran felt him approach. He stood helpless before him, merely his pawn to be dispensed with as he saw fit.

Bethamin turned Kjieran to face him, and he placed one icy hand upon Kjieran’s shoulder while another held his bare hip. It was an intimate stance, and Kjieran feared where he would take them next.

“Freedom,” the Prophet murmured again, clearly considering the concept while his eyes assessed Kjieran’s face. Kjieran could not see his expression, but he felt the man’s thoughts. For once they were not riotous, but this did not mean they were pleasant. The Prophet cupped Kjieran’s face with one hand again and ran his thumb across his lips. “This discussion has been fascinating,” he said after a moment. “We must do it again.”

“Yes, my lord,” Kjieran whispered, feeling the Prophet’s thumb binding his lips even as his nets of compulsion hovered hungrily above Kjieran’s consciousness, just waiting to be cast.

“
How deep does the alabaster go?”

- A popular saying in T’khendar

Carian vran
Lea draped his arms around bent knees and squinted into the distance. He could just make out the wavering form of the Vestal Raine D’Lacourte making his way back up the long sand dune, his image distorted by the morning’s heat. Balls of Belloth but that truthreader was obstinate. Carian had told him there was nothing around for miles, but
no
, he had to go see for himself—and take all damned night doing it.

“Who’s the one that’s been here before?” Carian demanded indignantly of
Gwynnleth
’s unconscious form lying in the sand beside him. “Yeah, that’s what
I
said.”  To be fair, Raine had also been to T’khendar, but that had been three hundred years ago, so Carian didn’t think it counted. 

He glanced over at Gwynnleth again. She didn’t look so good. He’d kept an eye on her all night while the Vestal was gone—that is, in between his tirades of alternately cursing Raine and Franco Rohre—so he knew she lived, but he felt unnerved sitting next to her for so long without her saying a bloody word. The
avieth
always had something to say to a man—most of it uncomplimentary—but that just made her more interesting.

Carian still didn’t know what he thought about being in T’khendar. True, it had been his plan to go there soon enough—had he not been drawn into service for Raine D’Lacourte, he’d have left the moment he got the weldmap from that wily old Kandori woman. But being
tricked
into traveling to T’khendar…well, that just rankled. Never mind that he could blame their situation entirely on Raine—as he’d said so many times, if the Vestal had let him
travel
the node to find out where it went, he’d probably have realized how dangerous it was. Then again, he might not have. It had been
exquisitely
done.

A do
ubleback by Belloth’s black balls!

Carian fashioned himself one of the best Nodefinders in the thousand realms, yet he doubted he could’ve managed such a complicated and difficult working. The skill needed to pin two nodes to the same nodepoint…you might as well try to move two rivers and make them converge at the same mouth. It was practically Nodefinder mythology to speak of it at all. What’s more, this doubleback ran between Alorin and T’khendar, two
entirely separate realms! If Franco Rohre had truly created it, the Espial deserved his most profound respect.

Still, Carian had imagined a more triumphant return, one where they didn’t end up in the middle of the bloody Wyndlass Desert.

Raine was near enough now that Carian could see the sand on his britches and the chagrined look on his face. The pirate leaned back on elbows and extended his long legs in the sand, crossing his boots at the ankle. “Well?” he inquired cheerily.

“You were right.” Raine trudged up the last ten feet of the dune looking exhausted.

Carian gave him a hard look. “You didn’t walk all bloody night, did you?”

Raine threw himself down in the sand beside the pirate and draped arms over knees, hanging his head. “What in Tiern’aval do we do now?” he growled.

Carian had prepared a number of pithy remarks for use upon Raine’s return, but seeing the Vestal so morose took all the fun out of gloating. “Like I said last night,” he said. “We walk—that way,” and he pointed west.

“But the mountains—” Raine made to protest again.

“Look, poppet, I know you think you know all about T’khendar—‘ooh, I was here during the Adept Wars,’” he mimicked in a high-pitched voice, waving his hands in the air, “but I’ve been here recently, savvy? I actually know where I’m going.”

Raine turned him a flat look
. Then he turned and looked behind them at the empty air where the node had been. Then he looked at Gwynnleth’s unconscious form. Then he looked back to Carian. “All right,” he said, sounding defeated. “We’ll do it your way.”

“Might’ve reached that conclusion last night, you know,” Carian complained as he got to his feet. It really was bloody hot. He wasn’t looking forward to carrying the damned avieth either, but Raine sure didn’t look like he was worth much that morning.

Hitching up his britches, Carian dropped to his knees in the sand, grabbed Gwynnleth’s arm and shouldered her up, then exhaled an oath as he straightened. She weighed a good deal more than he thought any self-respecting female should. He blew the hair out of his eyes—hers, not his; his was tied in a knot behind his head—and looked to Raine. “Ready?”