The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (12 page)

Franco nodded, and Devangshu returned with two goblets, handing one to him. “So…Niko roped you into coming here as well.”

“How could I resist when he re-routes a
leis
to his door to celebrate the occasion?” Franco returned with some asperity.

“Just so,” Devangshu grumbled. “Haughty bastard. That’s the sort of thing I’d expect from Markal Morrelaine, but Niko has only ever aspired to the notable role of Markal’s lesser second, a bastardized copy matching the original neither in skill nor arrogance.”

“We share at least in our disdain for our host,” Franco murmured. “Speaking of, do you know what this ‘important briefing’ is about? Have you met with him?”

Devangshu grunted. “He’s been locked away with Dore since I arrived, no doubt plotting some nefarious scheme to damn us all yet again.”

“Dore Madden is here?
” Franco couldn’t have been more dismayed at the news. If Niko van Amstel was a tornado, Dore Madden was the hurricane that spawned him. “I thought Dore was pretending to be Björn van Gelderan,” Franco said, recovering his composure with difficulty, “waging his own private little war in Avatar, safe across the Fire Sea.”

Devangshu grunted. “If what
Niko says about Björn is true, nowhere is safe for any of us.”

“
Niko has been known to exaggerate.”

They alluded, of course, to the most pressing concern on any Companion’s mind—that of being Called. The task Björn assigned each of them individually on that ill-fated night was a secret never to be shared, so it was impossible to know who, if anyone, had done as the Vestal bade them. All that was known was that Björn had
returned to call in his debts, and his price for disobedience was the life he’d spared so long ago—one taken in claim most often by a deadly
Whisper Lord
.

Franco had accepted his Calling. He’d long been resigned to the understanding that his treason might never be repaid—nor the First Lord’s mercy. He’d crossed paths in recent weeks with a few Companions who were also about the First Lord’s business, but otherwise there was no way of knowing who among their number had been Called, save the ones who turned up slashed to pulp.

“Well...Dore’s back from Avatar, and we’re none the better for it,” Devangshu meanwhile muttered. It seemed even Dore Madden paled in comparison to the fears inherent of Björn van Gelderan and his
Calling—which was only fitting in Franco’s estimation.

Devangshu turned to gaze back out at the distant storm. The clouds were broadening and had embraced most of the horizon, now a dark sheet sporadically backlit with lightning flares. “Dore Madden,” he repeated disdainfully, shaking his head. “Would that in three centuries someone had the fortitude to end the man’s life and spare us all his odious scheming. But no one does.” He turned Franco a heated look, his dark brown eyes sharp with criticism. “No one does—and do you know why? For fear that he might still claim their souls from the afterlife.” He gestured with his wine as he added, “It’s certain that if there was a way to accomplish so despicable a deed, Dore Madden would be the one to discover it.”

“An astute observation,” Franco replied soberly, wishing it was only jest and not completely true.

Franco felt that Niko carried much of the blame—he’d been the one that pushed them to hide in the catacombs, where Björn eventually found them, rather than turning themselves in and begging for mercy—but that was only after Dore’s even more lunatic plan to assault the Hundred Mages had miserably failed.

Franco wondered how much he could trust Devangshu. It would be helpful to have an ally. “Devangshu…” he began, but whatever else he might’ve said was preempted just then by the arrival of their host.

“Ah, the inimitable Franco Rohre, minstrel and bard, Nodefinder
extraordinaire!” 

Swallowing a grimace, Franco turned to acknowledge his host. “Niko.”

He had not changed in all these years—clearly he’d been vigilant at working the Pattern of Life, which all of them had been forced to work the first time while kneeling at Björn’s feet.

Blonde and blue-eyed, square-jawed and broad-shouldered, Niko was the consummate embodiment of nobility in form and the vilest low-city scoundrel in deed. They’d been good friends once, back when they were still in university together at Agasan’s famous Sormitáge. Franco had even looked up to Niko—who’d always boasted enormous popularity despite his lesser talent—but that was before Franco learned that the handsome façade hid such an unscrupulous core.

“How pleased I am to find you’ve accepted my invitation for the weekend, Franco,” Niko said. His blue-eyed gaze shifted to the other Nodefinder then. “And Devangshu Vita. Your venerated presence doubly honors my halls.”

“Of course it does,” Devangshu remarked.

Niko smiled that cultured, humorless smile that was so polite and yet so insulting at the same time. “Do make yourself at home, Vita. I won’t be but a moment with Rohre here, and then it is my hope we may all share a bountiful meal and become happily reacquainted. Come, Franco?”

Franco cast an inquiring look at Devangshu, but the latter only nodded farewell and turned his back on their host.   

Franco fell into step with Niko as they walked through the wide halls of his mansion. “You seem to have done well for yourself,” Franco observed, taking in the buttressed hallways decorated with myriad statues, tapestries and works of art.

“I have become a collector of sorts,” Niko returned amiably. “Nothing so notable as the Sormitáge’s Primär I
nsamling or Veneisea’s Musée d’art historitée, yet my humble collection has garnered the notice of many like-minded souls. My home has become a melting pot where artists and their philanthropic patrons can meet. Most recently I entertained the Empress of Agasan’s cousin and his retinue.”

Franco understood this rhetoric as Niko’s way of insinuating that he was powerful and politically well-connected—or at least he wanted Franco to believe he was, which at the moment was the more salient point.

“And what of your craft?” Franco inquired. “Traveled anywhere notable lately?’

Nowhere as notable as you, sneered the mad voice of his conscience.

Niko’s eyes veritably glowed. “Oh, I’ve done my share of exploring, weld-hopping and such—haven’t we all? No doubt we could both exchange stories of the distant realms now within our reach.” He took Franco by the shoulder as he joked, “I’ll bet we could reconstruct half a weldmap just between the two of us! And of course, I’ve assisted the Alorin Seat on numerous occasions when she’s had need of a Nodefinder,” Niko added, so self-absorbed that he missed completely Franco’s revulsion at his touch, despite it flowing off him in waves. “I’ve made more than a notable number of visits to Illume Belliel on her behalf.”

Franco was not heartened by this news. Niko gaining the acquaintanceship of
Alshiba Torinin
meant he’d set his sights on bigger games than the politics of kings. Franco managed to maneuver out of Niko’s reach and kept his expression benign as he replied, “It is indeed an honor to be granted access to the cityworld.”

Niko did not hide his disappointment well. “Oh…you’ve been there also?”

Franco knew he had to flatter the man, though it galled him to play to that particular vice. He gave a self-deprecating smile and replied, “On rare occasion.”

“Then you also have made the fair acquaintance of the Alorin Seat?”

Franco felt himself far too closely acquainted with every Vestal, but he merely replied with a modest smile, “Only through association with others.”  

They continued small talk while they walked, with Franco skirting the precarious line of appealing to Niko’s vanity without divulging anything about his own activities and contacts.

Two men awaited them as they arrived in a long gallery overlooking a line of forbidding mountains. Upon seeing Dore Madden, Franco realized with no little asperity that here stood a man whose acquaintance he
regretted making more even than Björn van Gelderan’s.

Dore had never been a hale figure, but the intervening years had hollowed the man until he
looked positively corpselike. His deep-set eyes seemed even more shadowed and were now little more than dark pools beneath black brows, giving his countenance a certain ferocity. His skin had grown tan during his years in Avatar, with deep, hard lines etched around his eyes and thin, spiteful ones spider-webbing his mouth. Rail-thin and with hair white as the desert sand, he looked nearly his considerable age, though he held his shoulders incongruously straight.

“Ah, Franco Rohre,” Dore noted with too much satisfaction for Franco’s comfort—the man taking note of him at all was disturbing enough
. “We gain the attention of a big fish in the little pond that is our modest Guild.”

“Dore,” Franco said by way of greeting
. His gaze strayed to the man standing beside Dore, a black-clad, cold-eyed stranger with a notable scar across his cheek. Scar or no, he might have still been handsome had he not radiated such ill-humor. 

Niko placed a hand on Franco’s shoulder, drawing his attention back. “Come, sit and have wine with us while we talk, Franco.”

Franco had to physically restrain himself from grabbing Niko’s hand off his shoulder and twisting it in a maneuver that would’ve had the man on the floor in seconds. Instead, he forced a shallow smile and replied, “Certainly, Niko, that would be welcome.”

The four of them moved toward a grouping of armchairs overlooking a balcony and the encroaching storm. It was there, as Niko was handing him a goblet of wine, that Franco noticed the scent of magic in the room.

It isn’t that elae can actually be smelled; rather, the awareness of the lifeforce is its own perception—no different from taste or touch—that must be honed like any other sense. Franco’s recent travels with the Fourth Vestal had brought him repeatedly into contact with the fourth strand of elae in use, and he knew it unmistakably now. Someone was wielding the fourth. 

A quick glance around as the others were taking their seats confirmed that the man in black was the one working the fourth strand. The fact that no one had introduced the man reinforced this conclusion. A quick leap landed Franco on the motive of this gathering.

The working of fourth-strand patterns to discover the truth of a man’s words came naturally to a truthreader, but as was the case for most Adept patterns intrinsic to the various strands, these same patterns were unwieldy and difficult to master by one not born of that strand. The complexity of wielding fourth-strand truth patterns by someone other than a truthreader made the patterns untrustworthy, and it was the basest sort of individual who hired a wielder to pattern the fourth instead of hiring a truthreader for the same purpose.

But Franco understood immediately why a truthreader would be unwelcome in this gathering: a truthreader in the room meant everyone’s thoughts were potentially open to display, while a wielder might settle his truth pattern on but one individual. It went without saying that Niko and Dore had agendas they didn’t wish known even to each other, much less to an Adept truthreader. To this end, having a wielder there to work the fourth made perfect sense, loathsome though it might be.

“Now, Franco,” Dore began, sitting with his spindly fingers clasping the arms of his chair like lion claws gripping the balls of a claw-foot tub, “we hear great things about you.”

Franco shifted his gaze to the man somewhat unwillingly. “That seems unlikely.”

“No, indeed,” Dore insisted. “It has come to our attention that you were recently in the employ of the Fourth Vestal—an honor, no doubt, for one such as yourself.”

Franco knew what Dore insinuated, a reminder that his noble family line had fallen from grace. It might’ve rankled once, but Franco had long progressed past such vanities. He was far more concerned about the man in black’s cold-eyed gaze upon him, which he could feel as surely as the flow of the fourth. But Franco had been well skilled in compartmenting his thoughts many years before he came into close association with Raine D’Lacourte, and his months with the Vestal had subsequently honed this skill to a razor point.

Franco naturally detested any wielder who would work forth-strand truth patterns—knowing their inherent fallibility—and it both infuriated and disgusted him that this stranger would wield such patterns upon him. He was loath to allow the man to garner even the least impression of his true thoughts, but he knew to affect this end he would have to drive the man forcefully and quickly from the room. 

So Franco, being only recently recovered from a near-fatal use of his own talent and thereby lacking a certain measure of decorum, conceived of decidedly vile imagery matching, he felt, his level of disgust toward the nameless—if vaguely familiar-looking—wielder.

While still holding Dore’s gaze, Franco filled his head with lustful thoughts of Niko. The idea was so abhorrent to him that he felt certain he could easily transfer this intensity of feeling to the wielder who sought to know his mind. Knowing, too, just how ‘loudly’ he needed to think of these images in order to broadcast them to the wielder through the fourth-strand patterns he was working, Franco cast the images his way and was rewarded by sight of the man stiffening in his chair.

“Yes,” Franco answered Dore while suppressing a potent grin that nearly made up for the disgust he felt himself. “I was asked to serve the Vestal in a matter of some importance.”