The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) (74 page)

Kjieran was still standing just inside the door when the servant returned with a tray sporting a curving silver teapot and tulip-shaped glass cups rimmed in gold. Kjieran caught the scent of mint as the man descended the steps and set the service upon the table. He bowed to Kjieran once more and left him.

A meeting room,
Kjieran thought as he walked down the steps and looked up at the carved dome,
but who comes to meet me?

The Prophet had assured him Radov would not stand in his way, but this did not mean he was safe in Tal’Shira. Kjieran had overheard too much whispering, too many thoughts shouting of the internal power struggles between the princes; angry accusations of increasing taxes to support a stagnated war; bitter hatreds and prejudices for the Prophet’s minions as much as for the Saldarian mercenaries ‘infesting the city’…a laundry list of complaints against Radov’s leadership and a festering malcontent.

“Deep thoughts, Truthreader?” asked a male voice suddenly from behind.

Kjieran turned with a start, for he’d heard no one enter through the massive door.

A dark-eyed Nadori faced him. Tall and gaunt, he wore silk desert robes in wielder’s black with the long folds of an ebon
keffiyeh
draping around his shoulders. His long face sported a goatee peppered with grey, while deep shadows carved from lean cheeks to jaw. His face displayed a smile, but his dark eyes, lined by years as much as the unforgiving desert sun, were coldly calculating.

A flash of gold on his hands drew Kjieran’s eye, and a brief glance revealed eight Sormitáge rings—one thin gold band worn on each of his fingers, leaving only his thumbs empty. The rings pronounced that he’d twice mastered each of the first four strands of
elae.
An uncommon accomplishment even before the wars. Though they’d never met before, Kjieran could not mistake him. 

“You are
Viernan hal’Jaitar
,” he said, swallowing despite himself.

“And you are Kjieran van Stone,” hal’Jaitar returned, “but what else are you, I wonder?” The smile deepened, the dark eyes scalding in their curiosity.

Kjieran was justifiably wary of Radov’s wielder and Prime Consul, for he was known to be cunning and extremely intelligent. Viernan was known to be one of the few Adepts who had survived the Adept Wars, a member of the famous Fifty Companions. He’d continued his study at the Sormitáge after the wars, gaining a formidable reputation as one of the most powerful wielders to arise since the fall. He reportedly consorted with all sorts of disreputable Wildlings—even zanthyrs as the need arose—and though he could not work the fifth, he was still as deadly as they came.

Seeing Viernan himself come to meet him, Kjieran had no doubt that a secret door opened from this room into the bowels of the palace, a tunnel for shuttling men unseen and unwilling from place to place.

Kjieran shoved his twitching hands behind his back and regarded the wielder with veiled concern. He felt suddenly ill-prepared to face off against this new enemy. Veirnan guarded his thoughts well—as any trained wielder would—and Kjieran could read nothing from his eyes, so he was forced to ask the older man, “How may I be of service, Consul?”  

Hal’Jaitar came slowly down the steps toward him. “The prince is curious as to the nature of your presence in his kingdom, Truthreader.” He looked Kjieran over sharply, his gaze penetrating. “You are neither Marquiin nor Ascendant, yet they bow to you. I had heard the Prophet was antipathetic to truthreaders in their, shall we say,
native
state. Unsullied, as it were,” and here he smiled wider, revealing straight teeth yellowed with age and an unbridled contempt for the Prophet’s work. Kjieran shared in this contempt, but he could never let hal’Jaitar know it. “Yet here
you
stand, apparently…unspoiled.”

“If you wish to test my talent with the lifeforce, Consul, I am at your disposal,” Kjieran replied. “A reading on yourself, perhaps?”

“Tempting,” said hal’Jaitar flatly, “but I am interested more in
why
. Why were you spared Bethamin’s Fire?”

“It is a great honor to be chosen to receive the Prophet’s kiss and become cleansed,” Kjieran said uneasily, careful to ensure his answers offered the least amount of information at the greatest level of truth.

“You give me schooled responses without conviction,” the wielder returned in disapproval, his dark eyes hot with accusation.

Kjieran struggled to form a reply. He should’ve realized that Radov and hal’Jaitar wouldn’t trust him merely because he carried a letter from the Prophet. These were highly secretive men, renowned for their dislike of foreigners—never mind truthreaders—and Kjieran felt unprepared for this confrontation.

Tell the wielder too much, and he was doomed; not enough, and his steps would be ever dogged by Viernan’s spies. Kjieran dropped his gaze and fought to still his shaking hands. “I do not know why I was not chosen to receive Bethamin’s Fire, Consul,” he murmured at last, which was the blessed truth.

Hal’Jaitar’s eyes were like stones of ebony, unyielding. “We are told you came to attend the parley in Bethamin’s name,” the wielder offered after an uncomfortable moment of considering Kjieran in this fashion. “The prince would know why.”

“I but carry out the Prophet’s will, Consul.”

“Ah yes, again the failsafe response, so obvious, so expected. But you are not Marquiin, forced into Bethamin’s mental mold…nor, I believe…one of his true disciples.”

This accusation chilled Kjieran. What could hal’Jaitar possibly know?
How
could he know anything at all? Perhaps it was just another test to throw him off his guard, to see what he might reveal? Yet Kjieran’s insides wormed with sudden fear.

Kjieran was no stranger to the double-speak perfected by politicians and truthreaders alike, nor unused to compartmentalizing his emotions, but hal’Jaitar posed a deadly and unpredictable enemy, and Kjieran did not know enough of him to retain solid footing in this sort of sparring. Still, he did what he could.

“I don’t know what you mean, Consul,” he returned, letting his gaze harden, his shoulders straighten, his tone convey his displeasure at the wrongful implication.

“Don’t you?” Hal’Jaitar smiled again, sharply suggestive. When Kjieran didn’t answer, his smile faded. “Here’s a question then,
Truthreader.
How did you come to serve Bethamin when your allegiance was to Gydryn val Lorian?”

Ever conscious of the wielder across from him, who was far more suspicious than Bethamin—for the Prophet felt all men should bow to his will and accepted any that passed his Ascendants’ slipshod screening—Kjieran told hal’Jaitar the tale he and Raine had arranged as truth, that Kjieran might have no trouble in the retelling. The Ascendant who’d found him in Veneisea half a year ago had accepted his story without question, but hal’Jaitar’s trust was ne’er so easily gained.

“I heard nothing of this so-called falling out between you and Gydryn val Lorian, our ally,” the wielder murmured when Kjieran finished his story, his gaze pinning Kjieran so fast that his twitching hands were all that dared move. “It hardly seems like the King of Dannym to cast a valued Adept from his service.”

“His Majesty was most distraught at my failure,” Kjieran replied with downcast eyes. It was true enough, though the king blamed himself as much as his advisors for their failure to unearth all of Morwyk’s deep-rooted, pernicious conspiracy to gain the Eagle Throne.

Hal’Jaitar arched a brow, took a step down and brushed past Kjieran, idly walking the lowest ring of circular steps with hands clasped behind his silk robes. Kjieran turned as the wielder passed, keeping his eyes on hal’Jaitar and his body as a shield for his ever-twitching hands.

“Truthreaders are notoriously loyal,” hal’Jaitar remarked, eyeing Kjieran critically from beneath furrowed brows, “especially ones Sormitáge-trained and sworn into service by the Fourth Vestal,” and he pinned Kjieran with a telling look upon this accusation. “Should you claim you now serve Bethamin instead of your king, Kjieran van Stone, have you also then forsworn your allegiance to Raine D’Lacourte?”

Kjieran felt a shock course through him. In the same moment, he became aware that Viernan now worked the fourth, for he could feel the change in the currents of
elae,
though Raine’s truth, the pattern was artfully done.

He dared not try to persuade hal’Jaitar, only answering as truthfully as he could, “I was sent away from Dannym, Consul. The Prophet’s Ascendants found me and brought me to Bethamin. He did not see fit to make me Marquiin, only allowing me to serve as an acolyte in his temple.” He let the fear that was his constant companion bleed into his voice as he added, “I believe you gravely underestimate the Prophet’s power if you think a man might serve as a spy beneath his gaze and emerge unscathed.”

“Is that what you are? Unscathed?”

Kjieran could not have managed words in that moment, even had he been able to think of an answer.

Hal’Jaitar observed him coldly, his gaze unreadable. “I am told you are one of the Prophet’s favored acolytes.” He came to sit on the low couch across from where Kjieran stood, adding as he settled down and crossed one knee, “oft visiting his chambers in the night,” and there was much that his tone implied—disgust and contempt not the least of them.

Kjieran inwardly groaned.
Shade and darkness! What else does the man know?

He never imagined hal’Jaitar had his own spies in Bethamin’s temple. How naïve he’d been to think Raine’s Brotherhood of the Seven Stones was alone in its intrigues! Worse was realizing that Viernan hal’Jaitar might’ve actually learned of his mission for Raine D’Lacourte—certainly he hinted at such knowledge. Had one of the Brotherhood’s contacts been compromised? Or could it be possible that Kjieran’s nameless contact served two masters?

Viernan was obviously enjoying his discomfiture. “Tell me,
Envoy
van Stone,” he posed, “what is the Prophet’s mind toward this parley? Toward our Prince Radov?”

With growing dismay, Kjieran managed, “The Prophet does not reveal his mind to his servants, Consul…even favored ones.”

“Nor, it would seem, to his allies,” hal’Jaitar replied. The smile was back, disarming to anyone who’d heard nothing of his reputation and an outright threat to those who had.   

Kjieran knew he faced the rearing king cobra in Viernan hal’Jaitar, its hood splayed in warning, and he feared making any motion to draw its deadly strike. But what choice did he have? The man had him pinned. Kjieran had no safe direction in which to move.

“Please,” said hal’Jaitar then, indicating the tea service with long fingers. “Let us drink and know one another, as is the custom in my land.”

Kjieran swallowed, eyeing the tea uncomfortably. It was the height of folly to take tea with a wielder of such unscrupulous repute, and a death sentence if he did not. Feeling increasingly overmatched, Kjieran took the offered seat across from Viernan, shoving his twitching hands partly beneath his legs to pin them still.

Viernan filled four glasses with amber tea, notably letting Kjieran choose one. Then he sat back on the couch and regarded Kjieran coolly, crossing one knee over the other once more. Kjieran settled the glass cup in his lap for fear of his shaking hands spilling it, and returned the wielder’s gaze. His truthreader’s training was a boon, for his expression never revealed the anxiety that gripped him so thoroughly.

“Now then,” said the wielder, “let us speak candidly, as befits Adepts of our mutual training.”

“Go on, Consul,” Kjieran returned, liking this less and less.

“Let it not be said I gave you ill chance to divulge the truth,” Viernan posed with a smile that was all fangs. “We know your true motivations, Kjieran van Stone.”

Kjieran tried to breathe normally through this bold accusation. If Viernan hal’Jaitar even suspected that he was seeking the truth of the val Lorian princes’ deaths and Radov’s complicity in them, Kjieran knew he would not walk out of that room alive. Bond to the Prophet or no, the wielder would ensure his destruction.

“Indeed?” Kjieran replied, forcing a weak smile. “What would those motivations be, Consul?”

“We know you are here to kill your sworn liege,
Truthreader
,” Viernan declared in a sneer of contempt, dark eyes flashing. “Dare not deny it.” 

With the fourth rolling so tumultuously in the room, Kjieran certainly would not, but nor could he confirm such a truth when the Prophet had forbidden him to speak of his assignment—much less what it would mean to his future should the words ever leave his mouth in Viernan’s company.

When Kjieran said nothing, hal’Jaitar continued, “Since Gydryn val Lorian’s demise equally suits the purposes of others who will be left unnamed, I will not prevent you from this task, but you must not act unsanctioned.”

“Assuming there is any truth to this claim,” Kjieran replied quietly, trying to maintain his footing on such a slippery slope, trying not to allow Viernan to maintain the edge above him, “what then is required of me? Whose sanction must I seek, and how?”

“That the missive will come from me is all you need know.”

“And how will you convey this sanction, Consul?” Kjieran remarked with a twitch of a derisive smile. “Shall I be on the lookout for a note penned in disappearing ink? Or perhaps a cipher, the code slipped to me within a steaming pot of tea?”