The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (65 page)

Isabel
. He suspected she was somewhere in this city, and the thought of seeing her both uplifted and terrified him—mostly the latter.

For three centuries, ever since Raine and the other Vestals found themselves on a lonely beach wondering where the island of Tiern’aval had gone, Raine had assumed Isabel must be dead. He and Alshiba both suspected Björn had killed all of the Mages in order to get to her alone, for there was no hiding one’s intentions from Epiphany’s Prophet. Björn would’ve
had
to have killed her, they reasoned, to work the evil that they blamed him for.

But now
…to have learned instead that Isabel was firmly behind her brother’s actions…that she was in fact working at his side—and everyone in T’khendar spoke of them as one, ‘the First Lord and the Lady’—was a fact Raine could not ignore, no matter how the knowledge tore at him. 

Unless she has somehow been subverted, too…

But it seemed utterly impossible. There was no one in the Thousand Realms like Isabel van Gelderan. In all of his life, this was the one and only truth Raine had ever taken on faith.

“You gonna stand there mooning all night or help me with this?” Carian complained.

Raine stirred from his deep introspection to see the pirate had his hands on the front end of Gwynnleth’s litter and was waiting for Raine to take the other. The Vestal moved to do so. “Sorry.”

Carian shook his head with a rueful grin. “Oh man, I certainly wouldn’t want to be your conscience these days.” 

Raine cast him a dark look. “Thank you, Carian.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome.”

They joined the masses moving down the Rue Montague, one of the major thoroughfares through the city. “Where are we going anyway?” Raine asked, looking around. He realized he’d been fairly useless as a traveling companion since they arrived. If not for the pirate, he’d probably still be sitting on a mountain of sand back in the Wyndlass, blistered and miserable and praying for death.

“Balearic says there’s a hotel on the Rue Caravaggio that might still have rooms.”  Carian looked at him pointedly.
“You do realize this is the last day of Adendigaeth, don’t you?”

Raine nodded.
The Longest Night.
The day when, according to the
Sobra I’ternin
, the
angiel
opened the Extian Doors to allow the waiting souls to pass through Annwn and learn the secrets of death and life so they could Return. The significance was not lost on Raine…nor the timing of it.

Raine had noted this fact some time ago.

Franco had been operating on some kind of timeline when Raine had faced off against him and Ean that night in Rethynnea. Was it outrageous to think that Björn’s plan for their journey through T’khendar might’ve been part of that timeline?

Not i
f Isabel had anything to do with it.

Factoring Isabel into the equation changed a lot of things.

No, it changed everything.

With the sun falling low in the west and Carian at his side, Raine once again made his way through a city in celebration. He had to admit there was something humbling about seeing so many people united in observation of the sacred rite. The Empress and her Sacred City of Faroqhar still rigorously observed the old ways, but the Agasi Empire was such a blending of cultures and beliefs, you would never see the entire city of Faroqhar celebrating the solstice in the same fashion. But Niyadbakir was every bit as vast as the Sacred City, and Raine was hard-pressed to find anyone not involved in or preparing for the evening’s fete.

As Raine and Carian were crossing a large piazza, where a series of fountains spewed jets of water back and forth, a shadow befell them. They both looked up at the same time.

“Belloth suck me sideways!” Carian hissed as he observed the
drachwyr
flying overhead. “There’s
six
of the bloody things!”

Indeed, Raine also counted that many forms flying low over the city, each dragon taking a second or more to completely pass, so massive were their forms—and yet so infinitely majestic and graceful. The angle of the sun perfectly caught the fire of their hides, and the dragons shimmered with gold and bronze, dark crimson and even hints of violet. They were perhaps the most beautiful yet fearsome creatures Raine had ever seen.

For a tense moment he recalled his battle with Rhakar on the plains of Gimlalai. That had been at sunset as well, but in his human form,
Şrivas’rhakárakek
was not nearly so elegant, and his fighting style was practically feral. Raine had be
en wielding a Merdanti weapon, shielding himself with the fifth,
and
sending
elae
into the blade and still the man had bested him in short order. 

Şrivas’rhakárakek,
The Shadow of the Light.
There was a story to that name—there was a story to all of their names—but Raine didn’t know it.

As he watched the last of the
drachwyr
pass overhead, Raine wondered which of them was Rhakar, and then he decided he’d rather not know.

“Didn’t you fight one of them once?” Carian murmured, craning his neck to watch the dragons until they had vanished from view.

“Yes,” Raine muttered.

“Yeah?” Carian turned to him brightly. “How’d that go for you?”

Raine gave him a peevish look. “I ended up here.”

“Oh, right.” Carian gave him an impudent grin, shrugged his eyebrows as he hefted Gwynnleth’s litter, and they set off together once more. “You know, poppet, I fought the zanthyr once,” he admitted, shooting Raine a rakish look over his shoulder.

“Yeah? How did that work out for you?”

“Got a bruise on my arse that lasted a fortnight and a vow of silence that still gives me indigestion.”

Raine felt a smile touch his lips. He gave the pirate a grateful look. Epiphany knew he could use with a little levity—and especially once he saw the man approaching across the plaza.

Masses of people stood between them and the oncoming man—each busy about their own affairs, whether that be watching a near troupe of performers, buying solstice candles or trinkets from the hundreds of vendors dotting the square, eating or drinking, or just talking or lounging with friends in anticipation of the fete—yet everyone stepped aside as
he
neared. Even those who didn’t see him, who had their backs to him, somehow moved out of his way, and those who did see him pressed hands together, fingertips to lips, and bowed deeply.

“Belloth lick
my
salty balls!” Carian declared in amazement. “Is that—?” He turned to Raine and asked in a low voice full of mischievous delight, “Is that your nemesis coming right now?”

Raine gave him a long-suffering look.

In point of fact, it was not Rhakar that came across the plaza, though Epiphany knew Ramuhárikhamáth was almost worse. At least Rhakar made it easy to dislike him. The Lord of the Heavens was entirely too…amiable.

As Ramu neared, Raine noticed the dragon-hilted greatsword strapped diagonally across the
drachwyr’s
back and grimaced. He would happily have never seen such a sword again.

“Raine D’Lacourte,” Ramu greeted as he neared. He held out his hand, and Raine solemnly clasped wrists with him.

“Ramuhárikhamáth,” Raine replied soberly. As he released Ramu’s hand, he nodded to Carian. “May I present the Nodefinder Carian vran Lea.”

“Ah yes,” Ramu’s dark eyes swept Carian. “The intrepid explorer who would free the Great Master from the Fifth Vestal’s basalt prison. You are him, no?”

Carian grinned like a wench who’d just been heartily propositioned. “Who knew you were so tall?” he remarked. “Are all of you that tall? I mean, I thought
I
was tall.”  He ambled closer to Ramu and stood up straight, eyeing their respective shoulders critically.

“Carian has trouble with authority,” Raine murmured in response to Ramu’s inquisitive look.

“Perhaps I should introduce you to my brother Rhakar,” Ramu suggested to Carian. “He also lacks a certain perspective.”

“But can he drink an entire bottle of rum while banging a Vaalden barmaid?” Carian demanded with one arched eyebrow.

“You must pose that question to him tonight, Carian vran Lea. I am most interested to know how he responds.”

“You haven’t come to cart us off to prison then?” Carian sounded highly disappointed.

“Sadly not,” Ramu told him, and Raine alone caught the utter amusement behind his composed demeanor. “Though no doubt you may wish by the end of the evening that I had,” he added.

Carian leveled him a suspicious glare. “How’s that?”

Ramu looked to Raine. “The First Lord has asked us to host you for the Solstice celebration,” he said. “Of course, we are more than pleased to do so.”

“I see,” Raine said quietly.

“Do you accept our invitation?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Ramu regarded him with his piercing dark eyes. “You always have a choice, Vestal.”

“
What?
Of course we’ll go!” Carian shot Raine an annoyed look. “Lead on, your Majesticness.”

“Please, call me Ramu,” the
drachwyr
replied. “That particular term of endearment is only used by a zanthyr whose memory I would rather not invoke this evening.”

“Oh,” Carian sounded uncharacteristically contrite—as if united suddenly with Ramu against zanthyrs in general. “Sorry about that.”

Ramu nodded in gracious acceptance of his apology. “Follow me, gentlemen, if you please.” He turned and headed off across the plaza, and once again the crowds parted for him like waves before a ship’s prow. Raine and Carian followed in his wake.

“So, I’ve a question for you, my handsome,” Carian posed to Ramu, who arched a brow at the appellation. “If your First Lord always intended to receive us so equitably, why couldn’t he have grabbed us in the Wyndlass?”

“I did send someone to your aid, if memory serves,” Ramu noted.

“Yes, and many thanks for letting us walk all damned day first,” Carian complained sourly. “I needed to work out a few kinks in my back.”

“If you like, I can return you to the Wyndlass.”

“But we’ve already made the journey now. Doesn’t that mean we’ve seen what he brought us here to see?”

“It appears there may be more to be gained.” Ramu turned an arch look over his shoulder.

“Carian is new to my oath-brother’s philosophies, Ramu,” Raine offered, wishing that in this case he might have less experiential understanding himself. “He may not realize that in Björn’s view, the journey is as important as the destination.”

Carian snorted. “Tell that to Gregoire nach Kugghen.”

“Who is?” Ramu asked.

“
Who is
?” Carian returned indignantly. “Only the first man to sail the West Agasi Sea to the far edge of the known realm! Six months aboard the
Kuggenhainen
, surviving storms and scurvy and a near mutiny to finally land at Kugghen Rock in 489aF.”

“And during which part of this exploration did Gregoire learn the most, do you suppose?” Ramu inquired without turning. “The journey, or the landfall?”

Carian cast a sooty glare at the
drachwyr’s
back.

Raine might’ve told the pirate it was pointless to argue philosophy with a Sundragon, but he thought he’d let Carian discover that painful truth for himself.

They traded the wide city square for a smaller lane that wound uphill among storefronts and tall city homes, and just when Carian was opening his mouth to lodge a complaint—presumably about the torturous incline—Ramu halted them before a stone edifice housing a single black-lacquered door. He traced a pattern in the air and then opened the door.

“You might gather your companion,” he advised then, to which Carian collected Gwynnleth into his arms, but not before shooting Raine an incendiary glare full of blameful annoyance. They followed Ramu through the dark portal and emerged on the other side into an endless hallway.

“Belloth take me for his
bitch
!” Carian swore. He swung his head to look from one end of the passage to the other, his face completely transformed by astonishment.

“No doubt, you comprehend the laddering effect of the nodes,” Ramu noted as he closed the door behind them.

Carian abruptly shoved Gwynnleth into Raine’s arms, who scrambled to accept her before the pirate dropped her completely. “This is incredible!” Carian shoved both hands into his wild black hair and swung to stare from end to end. Suddenly he spun to Ramu. “This is the Great Master’s work!”

“But of course.” 

Carian let out an excited whoop and ran to the nearest door, which he yanked open, peered into, and then slammed shut before rushing across the corridor to the next closest door and repeating the process.

Ramu frowned as Carian headed for the third door. “I fear he could be about this for some time.”