The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (32 page)

The Second Vestal was always tall and broad of shoulder, and Franco had never seen him wearing anything but black, desert or no desert. Dagmar turned and leaned against the table as he continued his thought, “But Franco, I must admit, when you’re spending weeks at a time in this heat, when the sun has stolen every ounce of energy and even your bones feel baked and burned…in such a time do you look upon the fifth as a blessing.”

“Why were you spending so much time here, my lord?” Franco returned, adding under his breath, “Why did Malachai create a desert at all? It seems so pointless when you’ve unlimited possibilities.”

Dagmar gave him a strange look and answered, “There was much Björn’s Council of Nine didn’t understand about what was happening in T’khendar in its nascent days. Even my oath-brother was confused in the beginning—which is something I hope never to witness again. He wanted my help, so he told me all.”

Franco gaped at him. “
Before
the Citadel fell?”

He nodded.

Franco exhaled a low whistle. He recalled how tormented Raine and Alshiba were over Björn’s motivations, and equally so over Dagmar’s subsequent return to T’khendar. It would be a considerable blow once they learned the Great Master had been Björn’s ally all along.

But these were truths Franco would rather not have known, so he did not delve any deeper into them. “You said you were spending a lot of time here in the desert, my lord?”

Dagmar eyed him sagely, noting Franco’s reluctance, but he did not press the matter. “The Wyndlass is the outermost barrier to the end of the known realms, Franco. Beyond this desert lies the naked aether
of unraveling space. The welds here must be unimaginably strong to resist the forces that pull against them. Björn and I spent months shoring up these aetheric places to keep
deyjiin
from seeping in…and to keep the Malorin’athgul out.”

“But…” Franco frowned. “Aren’t they already in Alorin?”

Dagmar flashed a grin. “Three, yes, but we don’t want to invite any more in, do we?”

“Indeed not!” Franco hastily agreed, unnerved by the very idea.

“So have I asked you here to aid me this time, Franco,” Dagmar explained. “Long have I tended these welds, seeing to their welfare as a gardener nurses a delicate fruit to ripen on the vine, protecting it from dangers seen and unseen. The
drachwyr
are my silent watchmen, observing from the air what only their immortal, fifth-strand eyes might witness, noting the tiniest snags in the fabric of the realm. Then do I tend to them. Now, I would have you here to help me, if you accept this role.”

“Of course, my lord,” Franco replied, though he silently loathed the idea of spending even one more hour in the furnace that was the Wyndlass, much less an unknown number of weeks.

“But what of your other task?” Dagmar asked then. He settled onto his hammock like a chair and sipped his
siri
as he swung gently
.
“What is your old friend Niko up to?”

Franco schooled himself calm on the matter, for he was altogether too keen to destroy Niko van Amstel in agonizing and bloody ways. He reported with an appropriate underscore of acid in his tone, “He plans to depose you, my lord.”

Dagmar gave him a look of resigned acceptance. “I suspected something of the sort.”

“You don’t seem overly dismayed. I was ready to tear out his throat.”

The Great Master gave him a grateful look. “I know I have your support, Franco. You have always been true to your oaths. No,” he said, sighing, “there are worse things than no longer being Alorin’s Second Vestal.”

“My lord!” Franco protested at once.

“Be at ease, Franco, and hear me out.” Dagmar raised an imploring hand. “My brother’s game far surpasses the mere politics of realms. I will not be changed if suddenly this ring is denied me. The Vestal oath is not a ring to wear.”

Franco clenched his teeth.
It is to Niko.
“
He
intends to take your place, you know.”

Dagmar flashed a rueful grin. “That went without saying.”

Franco felt protest and angst welling. He couldn’t accept Dagmar’s passive demeanor. “My lord, do you really intend to do nothing?”

Dagmar finished his
siri
and reclined back in his hammock again. “The First Lord’s advice is ever wise, Franco,” he observed then, “and I have learned much of his philosophies in the last few centuries. We learn from the Esoterics of Patterning that the universe aligns toward our intentions. If we are focused on a single goal—that mountain in the distance, say,” and he nodded toward a far basalt cliff jutting to scrape the sky, “then the more we continue toward that goal with singular focus, the more the universe aligns to bring it into being. If, however,” and here he eyed Franco sagaciously, “we are attacked along the way and we diverge from that path to handle each attack, we have stopped all progress toward the mountain. Our goal has been abandoned.”

“So you’re saying we have to ignore all attacks?” Franco challenged dubiously. “I cannot accept that.”

“No, of course not. To ignore an attack merely brings it closer to your path. What Björn advises us, however, is to accept that there will be attacks, and to solve them without diverging from the path toward our goal.”

“And how do we do that?” Franco grumbled.

Dagmar leveled him a sardonic grin. “Therein lies the challenge of the game.”

The game
.
That damnable grace-forsaken game!

Franco had long ago decided—albeit in hindsight—that he should have slit his own throat rather than take part in any aspect of the Fifth Vestal’s blasted game, even as he knew he had no choice in the matter now, that in fact he’d made his choice long ago. But this did not in any way soften the brutal reality that the game they were about was deadly beyond measure.

Even deadlier than working the fifth.

Grimacing, Franco poured himself more
siri
, feeling ill-humored. “I suppose I should learn some fifth-strand patterns then, my lord,” he decided, turning to Dagmar with grim resignation. “At least that way, when the end comes, I’ll meet it comfortably.”

“Take care when biting at the bait of mystery.

Always a hook lurks beneath its flesh.”

- A joke among zanthyrs

Raine and
the gypsies reached the city of Renato in the late afternoon, emerging through arid foothills onto fertile plains where a sprawling walled city of plastered stone and terracotta nestled between river and hillside.

The first day of Adendigaeth had arrived, and
the city was abuzz with preparations for the twelve-day festival, which was set to begin that evening with the First Lord’s Masquerade. Balearic had explained that the largest fete would be held at Björn’s palace in Niyadbakir, but the Governors of the five cities became extensions of the First Lord’s hospitality during Adendigaeth, and accordingly, to launch the festivities, they held a masquerade in all five cities of the realm.

As Raine and Carian arrived in Renato, the streets were jammed with people flooding in from the countryside to attend the fete. Many were already in costume, and revelers had begun spilling out of
tavernas
and cafés all over town, even as city crews still labored to string lanterns between rooftops or hang glass globes from trees and arbors.

The Iluminari had made camp on the outskirts of town at a site large enough for their wagons, so Balearic took Raine and Carian into the city on foot. As they reached the central piazza and its sprawling central fountain, with the Governor’s sun-gold palace rising four stories on the north side, Raine stopped suddenly, his diamondine gaze revealing his utter mystification.

Balearic came to a halt beside him, while the pirate swaggered over to the magnificent fountain, which was easily thirty paces in diameter, climbed in boots and all, and dunked his head under one of the downspouts.

“I just can’t believe it,” Raine said under his breath. T
he existence of so much, the commerce and prosperity, the masses of people living in a realm supposedly devoid of life—these truths dumbfounded him. Too, Raine found something eerily familiar about Renato, but he couldn’t place it was. It had been bothering him ever since he entered the city beneath one of seven towering arches, the arcade reminding him uncomfortably of Tiern’aval’s seaport. “Where did it all come from?” Raine muttered, more to himself than Balearic. “Where did these
people
come from?”

“Renato was the first city in T’khendar built by human hands,” Balearic offered. He stood relaxed with hands in his large pockets and grinning at the pirate, who had started splashing around in the fountain as if trying to catch a frog. “From what I hear, the city was constructed by the inhabitants of Tiern’aval and was raised from its ruins.”

Raine turned him a staggering look. His heart—having painfully stopped in that first instant Balearic said the words—was now racing as if to catch up with those lost moments. “What did you say?” he whispered severely.

“Tiern’aval,” Balearic repeated, missing Raine’s sudden change in manner, for his attention was fixed on the pirate instead. He continued absently, “As the story goes, when Malachai twisted the weld into the Citadel on Tiern’aval, the city was ripped here. It lay in ruins, however, so the First Lord gave the inhabitants unlimited support in rebuilding it.”

Raine felt immensely ill. “You’re telling me,” he said, forming the words with difficulty around the disbelief lodged in his throat, “that we’re standing on the rebuilt ruins of
Cair Tiern’aval
?” 

“Aye,” Balearic said. He gave the Vestal a sideways look full of meaning.

Raine turned away from the gypsy, for he feared a certain lack of composure overcoming him. He pushed hands into his pockets and clenched his jaw and tried to balance the forces of disbelief and horror that were attacking him. After a moment, he made up his mind upon a course of action. “Excuse me, Balearic,” he murmured, and he set off across the square towards the Governor’s palace.

“Hey!” Carian shouted from the fountain. He leaped over the rim and sloshed across the plaza toward Raine. “
Hey
,” the pirate said again, snaring Raine by the sleeve so that he had to stop and turn to face him. “Just where’re you going, poppet? I thought we were here to find a Healer for Birdie?”

Raine exhaled a long sigh. “No doubt Balearic will follow through on that promise,” he heard himself say, only half-aware of the conversation at all. “I have something I…need to do.” He turned away from the pirate and headed on.

“So, we’ll meet you back at camp then,” Carian called after him, sounding annoyed.

The Vestal had already forgotten he was there.

Raine D’Lacourte had long suspected that Björn van Gelderan held all the answers—yea, he had relentlessly accused the man of hoarding them like the proverbial jewels in a dragon’s lair. Yet it was one thing to suspect such—for the accusation carried a heavy dose of remonstration and blame—and quite another to realize it had been entirely true.

All of the questions he’d been asking for so long…clearly there
were
answers. Somehow in the intervening years, Raine had fallen into apathy about answers even existing. He’d just blamed Björn for having them without considering that he actually
did
. Meanwhile, many of the ‘answers’ he and Alshiba had decided upon had been naught but inventions, fabrications derived from their own failure to understand Björn’s motivations and actions.

This latter realization brought to light an uncomfortable truth: So long as Raine could blame Björn for some problem or circumstance, he didn’t himself have to be effective in handling it. In essence, he could use his oath-brother’s absence to justify all manner of his own failings. And had—
for three hundred years
.

That was a bitter pill, indeed.

It doesn’t excuse what he’s done
, he reminded himself
.
Yet this accusation was growing pale, weakened by truths that denied the integrity of Raine’s invented explanations.

No, Raine was beginning to see—starting with Phaedor’s cutting remarks before he was even willing to believe Malorin’athgul existed, and following through what he’d learned about Isabel and the other Mages—that there was a vast canyon of truth between what he and Alshiba didn’t know and what Björn did.

Ruminating on these ill thoughts, Raine reached the Governor’s palace and headed up the wide stairs leading to the entrance. The doors stood open to allow the various crews easy access, and a constant flow of men and women flooded in and out, ostensibly setting up for the ball. Raine made his way inside following four men who labored beneath an ice sculpture of a giant bird, but he broke away as they were met by an imperious-looking woman in a black dress.

Two corridors led to left and right, branching off the grand foyer. The left looked less crowded, so Raine headed down the left-hand passage and opened his mind to the host of thoughts drifting on the currents, listening, sifting… 

He could learn much just by listening. Most people didn’t realize their thoughts had force, that the energy associated with the process of thought was naturally carried upon the currents of
elae.
More often than not, Raine didn’t need to use his talent to delve into the minds of others, for their thoughts were shouted loudly upon the tides.

As he walked the long hall with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the floor, Raine heard all of the myriad voices one might imagine on a day like that. Impatient thoughts, anxious thoughts, excited thoughts—many of these—but there were a select few mental voices he specifically listened for…voices he hadn’t heard in centuries, voices he would know anywhere. And eventually, one floated to him, though it was by far the last one he’d expected to hear.

Cristien Tagliaferro
!

The voice of Cristien’s thoughts was as unmistakable as the pain of hearing them was palpable, for Raine had shared minds with Cristien the way only two truthreaders as closest friends might. The sound of Cristien’s thoughts pierced Raine’s heart and stole his breath, the bolt of recognition bringing him to a standstill in the middle of the corridor, half bent and bewildered.

How are you alive
at all, my friend? I thought you were long taken from us…

Of anyone, Raine had mourned Cristien’s loss the hardest.

Dreading the confrontation to come now, Raine swallowed against a sudden ill feeling in his stomach and pressed slowly on, following Cristien’s energy upcurrent to the source, to the man.

He found him standing on the steps of a large gazebo talking to a Shade. Cristien’s curly brown hair hung in his eyes, as unkempt as ever, and his square jaw and cleft chin were likewise in need of a shave, but he seemed otherwise unchanged. Every aspect of his lean form was as Raine remembered. Behind Cristien, an orchestra was rehearsing, the conductor clapping the beat of a complicated rhythm that the flutists seemed to be having trouble keeping up with.

Cristien and the Shade both turned to Raine the instant he stepped out of the loggia into the sun, as if his presence had immediately registered in their minds with shocking force. Raine felt Cristien’s colorless eyes pinned expertly upon him, and realized that his own troubled thoughts had likely been speaking louder than he’d intended.

For a moment the two truthreaders stood locked in each other’s gaze, and Raine felt the energy building between them, taut as a violinist’s strings. Then Cristien was launching toward him, and before Raine knew it, Cristien had grabbed him into an embrace. “Epiphany bless the day!” Cristien laughed as he hugged Raine close and clapped him on the back with verve. “Have you
finally
seen the light?”

“Cristien,” Raine said quietly, the hurt too raw in his tone.

“Ah,
Cephrael
, no…” the other truthreader remarked, pulling away to take Raine by the shoulders instead. He searched Raine’s eyes with his own, and gaining understanding, dropped his arms and took a step backwards. “My, what a hurricane of thoughts. What are you doing here then, Raine? After all this time?” 

Raine shook his head. “I don’t really know…yet.”

“I see,” Cristien said, though he clearly didn’t.

To Raine, it seemed he was staring at a ghost. A vast emptiness spread inside him where delight should’ve blossomed, but rather than rejoicing in the certain knowledge that his dear friend lived, instead he only felt betrayed.

Perceptive to Raine’s thoughts, Cristien’s brow furrowed and his eyes grew distant. “It was quite impossible, you know,” he said, backing further off to stand his own ground, an invisible line now drawn between them, between their loyalties, between the conflicting truths they each held inviolate.

Raine held his friend’s gaze, two pairs of diamondine eyes pinned on each other from very different faces, one square and masculine with deep-set eyes and a poet’s sensuous mouth, the other softly handsome but tormented beyond measure. “What was impossible?” Raine inquired tightly, his angst building.

“Contacting anyone,” Cristien said, clearly defensive. “In the early days the realm was too unstable for communication with Alorin.
Deyjiin
roamed freely here, wreaking havoc. It took the better part of half a century to cleanse the realm of it. And by then? What mercy to tell anyone, even had I the wherewithal to rejoin their lives? Things lost could never be regained. Everyone I’d known and loved had mourned me and moved on five decades in the past.” He shook the hair from his eyes with a practiced toss of his head and implored Raine with his gaze. “It was a new world by then, a new time. Life moved on without me, Raine.”

Some of us did not.

Cristien shot him a tormented look, too keen to Raine’s mind for even unspoken thoughts to go unheard, even after all that time.

Raine regarded him gravely. He had a thousand questions. Disappointingly, his pettiest one made it to the forefront first. “Were you always sworn to him, Cristien?” A bitter question full of hurt.

“Raine, that’s not fair.”

“Cristien
Tagliaferro sits upon the Council of Nine,” said a voice from beside them, and Raine tore his eyes away from Cristien’s to find the Shade standing there. “So has it always been, so will it always be.”

Raine turned back to Cristien, who was looking dismayed.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” the Shade asked then.

Holding Cristien’s gaze again, Raine said heatedly, “I confess my attention is fixed on another.”

“I am Anglar.”

That got Raine’s attention in true. He looked to the Shade and declared, “
Anglar Tempest
died in the Citadel.” For a moment Raine was stunned to silence just staring at the man, but then he recognized Anglar’s familiar features, albeit now encased in unearthly chrome. “
How?
” Raine was suddenly desperate to understand. “Anglar, why
this?
”

“There is much you don’t know about the Battle of the Citadel,” Anglar’s Shade replied in that solemn, staid manner all Shades seemed to possess. “I made a choice then that cost me my life. The First Lord offered me a different path, and I took it.”