The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (25 page)

Tanis had no intention of doing anything else, not with
another
Malorin’athgul wandering around, and then there was that other man…the cadaverous one with the storm of malevolent thoughts. Tanis could tell he was treacherous just from encountering the space of his mind.

They were making their way across the hall, weaving amongst the elegant crowd, when Pelas slowed his pace and then abruptly stiffened. His eyes latched onto a woman so intently that Tanis knew Pelas saw no one else.

The woman walked with a man toward the patio they’d just left, and Pelas turned and followed like a snared fish. Tanis watched the darkness descend upon him with growing trepidation, yet he suspected that to disturb Pelas now might mean the end of both of them—especially with the Lord Abanachtran so close. He fretted over what to do, praying that Epiphany might grant him a moment’s inspiration.

Just as they emerged back out onto the balcony, the Lord Abanachtran appeared. Tanis could feel the man’s malice preceding him. The darkness meanwhile had Pelas wholly consumed—his thoughts had descended to that cold, merciless place that Tanis knew too well—and his eyes remained pinned upon the Healer and her escort, who were now heading down into the gardens.

Seeing Shail approaching, Tanis dropped his eyes and stared hard at his boots, desperately wishing he might become invisible again.

The man who called himself Lord Abanachtran stopped beside his brother. “Pelas,” he greeted darkly.

“Shail,” Pelas replied without turning his piercing gaze from the departing Healer.

“I see your bloodlust still consumes you, clouding your judgment as ever it has.”

“As does your quest for dominion, brother,” Pelas replied with cold disinterest.  Tanis realized that perhaps it was an unexpected boon that Pelas was in the darkness, for he seemed ever as frightening as Shail. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” Pelas remarked.

“You should have. My field, after all, is intelligence.”

“Sedition seems more apt.”

Shail’s lips spread in a feral smile. “Are they not one and the same?”

“I suppose we each pursue our purpose in unique ways,” Pelas replied, but the condescension was heavy in his tone. He had not once bothered to look at his brother, and even Tanis felt himself excluded from Pelas’s rarified air. “So it’s the Lord Abanachtran now, is it? That’s bold of you. Think you’ll succeed in your little rebellion?”

Shail stiffened, and Tanis caught the tumble of his thoughts—a flash of confusion and the slightest startle of fear glimpsed amid boiling anger.

Pelas smiled, cool beneath the fire of his brother’s furious gaze. “Ah, but you didn’t think I knew so much of your affairs, did you? Yet I am not without my own spies.”

Though he was clearly outraged, Shail reeled in his anger as if it had never existed, which Tanis found even more disturbing. “And who’s this?” Shail inquired tightly, shifting the force of his attention onto Tanis, who in turn stared harder at his boots. “Your protégé?”

“The son of one of my subjects,” Pelas replied with such a perfect mix of contempt and derision in his tone that even Tanis would have believed him. “He serves me now.”

“A fitting duty in exchange for the service you deemed his mother.”

Ignoring the sneer in this remark, Pelas returned, “I noted your experiment with Rinokh did not fare so well.”

“Did it not?” Shail’s smile was so chilling that Tanis felt it like slime creeping down the back of his neck. He suppressed a shudder. “Good to see you, brother,” Shail murmured. Then he left.

Pelas struck off after the Healer. Tanis could naught but follow.

He fretted the entire way through the garden, imagining all manner of terrible consequences for himself, for Pelas, for the Healer. They came upon her abruptly in a rose court. She sat upon the edge of a fountain laughing with her escort. Pelas approached the Healer and dropped to one knee.

“Pardon my intrusion,” he murmured with his head bowed, “my deepest apologies, but I have followed you here.” Looking up at the woman, who wore an expression of surprised interest, he continued, “When I saw you inside, I was taken aback. I felt certain that some part of me recognized you. Is it…could it be possible…do you recall if perhaps you might have healed me once?”

Tanis watched this courtship in terror, for the darkness had firm hold of Pelas, yet he remained immensely compelling…perhaps even slightly dangerous, but in a way that drew curiosity as a needle draws blood. This was the Pelas that Tanis had first glimpsed back in the café in Rethynnea, and with a gulp, the boy realized what must’ve drawn the darkness upon Pelas that day—or rather
who
—for he and her Grace had walked by only moments before Tanis took up a chair near the man. Had Pelas been responding to the Lady Alyneri in the same way he now responded to this poor doomed Healer?

Tanis shuddered to think so. The idea of Pelas’s darker nature having even glanced upon his lady filled Tanis with a sense of dread so complete that his stomach turned sickly over it.

The Healer meanwhile exchanged a look with her companion, and then gave Pelas her full attention. She had a round face that was not unkind and dark hair, and she seemed in the fullness of her years. “I’m not sure, my lord,” she replied. “Let me look upon you.”

The smile Pelas gave broke Tanis’s heart. Their conversation continued, with Pelas gaining her name and what city she hailed from, but the boy hardly heard it, for the sound of his soul crying out in protest was too loud in his ears.

Fate had worked a cruel twist indeed to force a man who was capable of engendering such admiration to use his talent to the detriment of all. Tanis wanted Pelas to be
good
, but he patently wasn’t.

The Healer and her escort laughed at something Pelas said, drawing Tanis back into their conversation. Pelas gave her a charming smile, kissed her hand, and stood. “It was most wonderful to meet you, Medira,” he said, proclaiming her doom as he bowed in farewell. Then he turned and left them.

Tanis followed feeling agonized. Would that he had some magical potion that would cure Pelas of his dark desires! It was so hard to be with him knowing what he intended, yet Tanis
wanted
to be with him. In their short time together, Tanis had come to know this man, and though they considered each other equally delusional, Tanis genuinely liked Pelas.

Why—oh why—in Epiphany’s name
did you follow him, you stupid boy?

Pelas did not head back for the mansion but led them deeper into the moonlit gardens. When they were far out of earshot even of the birds and Pelas had surfaced from the darkness, Tanis braved timidly, “You’re going to go after her aren’t you, sir?”

Pelas glanced at him, but his gaze remained distant. “Very likely.”

“But sir,” Tanis urged with sudden desperation, “you know you could still choose not to do it.”

“Such a choice is quite impossible, little spy.”

“
No
,” Tanis insisted, “it’s not—you simply decide that you won’t do it!”

Pelas gave him a soft look, and Tanis felt real tenderness from it. “I could decide, as you say,” he admitted, clearly giving due thought to the idea, “but in the end it would make no difference. I would still find myself there someday, hungering, waiting to claim her.” He shook his head and sighed resignedly. “I cannot change my nature. The end is inevitable.”

“What if you could?” Tanis asked, stubbornly clinging to hope.

Pelas arched a curious brow. “
What do you mean?”

“What if you
could
change your nature.
Would
you?”

“The question holds no merit. It is hypothetical.”

“What if it wasn’t?” Tanis persisted. Then he added suddenly, “There is much in our world that you have not yet experienced.”

Pelas frowned. “Indeed?”

Tanis could tell his question had finally impinged, and he asked again, using all of his truthreader’s power, “What would you choose if the choice was given you, sir?”

Pelas turned him a swift look, for he felt the compulsion and was not immune to
it. “I…” his gaze became puzzled, intense. “I don’t…know.” Abruptly his expression softened, and there was even a little admiration in it. “I will think upon it, little spy.”

“Do that,” Tanis grumbled. Then, as they started walking again, he asked, “Do we head—” but the words never made it off his tongue, for that’s when things went from miserable to disastrous. 

They had just emerged from a path bordered by high boxwoods onto an open lawn. But rather than distant statues, as Tanis had thought at first glance, seven armed men were fanning out across the lawn with clear ill purpose.

Pelas slowed at their approach, and Tanis felt the man’s thoughts go still.

“Sir?” Tanis whispered. When Pelas didn’t answer, the lad asked uncertainly, “Can you fight them the same as you did the thieves in the Solvayre?”

“These men carry Merdanti weapons,” Pelas murmured ominously. “If I tried that trick I’d lose my hand.”

Tanis stared fretfully at him and whispered, “Can’t you use your power?”

“He knows I won’t,” Pelas hissed without removing his gaze from the approaching men. “I can’t afford to reveal myself here any more than he can.”

Now Tanis felt really frightened, and the men kept coming closer. Seven men carrying Merdanti blades, when even one could mean Pelas’s death.

Tanis had no choice. He hurriedly drew his dagger from inside his boot and pushed it into Pelas’s hand.

“What…?” Pelas’s eyes went wide, and he gaped at Tanis. “Where did you get this?” 

“It’s mine,” Tanis insisted defensively.

“I can see it is the same blade, yet—” But he pursed his lips and shook his head, knowing now was not the time to question the mystery. He turned and focused a calculating gaze upon the men, who were but twenty paces away now, and remarked, “You may have just saved our lives, little spy.”

He shrugged out of his coat and handed it to Tanis, explaining, “It is always preferable to fight unencumbered, and to imagine each of your opponents is your most hated nemesis.” His gaze narrowed dangerously as he gazed at his attackers. “I shall be envisioning both of my brothers, for either of them could have cast this net. Run now into the thicket, and do not emerge until I call for you.”

“Be careful, sir,” Tanis cautioned with earnest concern.

Pelas gave him a wondrous look. “Go!”

Tanis fled back onto the boxwood path and forced his way through the hedge, whose branches in return scratched deeply enough into his flesh to draw blood. Concealed on the other side of the thicket, Tanis hurried to find a vantage where he might peer back through.

He saw the men drawing near, saw Pelas go tense as a panther about to pounce, and then it began.

Pelas closed with the nearest man, blocking his advance with Phaedor’s dagger. They struggled, and Pelas kicked him off, but he did not gain his blade.

Two more came at him. Pelas caught the upraised arm of the first of them and twisted into his guard while spinning his dagger and slamming it unerringly into the second man’s heart. Pelas grabbed his sword as the man fell and swung upwards through the upraised arm of the first man. He fell back with a scream and Pelas turned to met the next two men.

He took them both together, wielding blade and dagger, and beat them into a retreat using powerful rapid strokes. One faltered and met his end with his throat and chest torn asunder. The second darted in as Pelas was turning and may have marked him in the motion, but Pelas finished his turn and chopped his head off, snatching his falling blade as his body toppled. 

He sensed an attacker rushing up behind him and dropped to one knee. He parried the man’s downward rushing blade his two swords crossed over his head. Then he spun on his knees and swung both swords around, cutting the man in half.

The armless men had found his feet and was staggering away. Pelas threw his sword and took him through the back. He slammed forcefully forward into the grass. The seventh man tried to flee, but Pelas caught him with his second blade thrown so powerfully that the man sped through the air and into a tree, where he remained, staked gruesomely to the bark.

The night grew still, as if drawing in a deep breath. Pelas got to his feet and began collecting up the men’s blades. He pitched them onto a cloak belonging to one of the fallen, hoisted the make-shift bag up over one shoulder and looked unerringly to where Tanis watched. “Come little spy. We must away.” 

His voice remained tense, taut with senses on full alert, and Tanis perceived a lingering danger. So the lad hastily pushed his way back through the boxwood, hissing a curse at the spiteful hedge, which grabbed hold of his boot in the end and nearly tripped him. He stumbled up to Pelas looking frazzled.

Pelas received him with laughter in his eyes. “I do believe you fared worse than me.” He called his doorway then, drew Tanis close within the circle of his arm, and spun them through.

They stood alone in the endless darkness, where the only sounds were the pounding of their hearts and the rush of their breath.

“Where do we go?” Tanis whispered.