by D. T. Kane
She heard Erem inhale, as if preparing to refute her. When no words came, though, she chanced a glance at him. His lips were set in an unreadable line. She’d almost call it a frown, yet somehow it wasn’t stern enough.
“Your mother.”
“What about her?” She glared into his spectacles.
His not-frown softened further.
“She was the Blade Master Keeper. A once-in-a-generation talent.”
“Don’t you think I know that? But what does it have to do with anything?” Jenzara tried to maintain the vehemence of her stare, but a sudden burning behind her eyes made it difficult.
“Blade Master Keeper,” he repeated. “A teacher as much as anything else. We all were. That’s what the Symposium stood for. Ensuring knowledge was accessible to any who sought it.”
She shook her head with such vigor her neck ached. “No. They wouldn’t even let me spar. That’s how bad I am.”
Erem’s mouth turned into a slow smile that showed more in his cheeks than lips.
“You must first take up the blade before they’ll allow you into the ring.”
“What’s the point?” The burning in her eyes was getting worse. She brushed it away with the back of a hand. “It didn’t help her. She went away with a sword at her hip and never returned. Bladesorrow still killed her along with the rest.”
Erem’s smile was gone.
“Take it.” He shoved the weapon at her.
She pushed it away, stomach rolling up at the mere touch.
“I won’t.”
“Sooner or later Jenzara, you must—”
Ferrin gave a dismayed cry.
Her head snapped in his direction. He was doubled over, clutching at his shoulder. She was at his side in an instant, half cradling him as he writhed into her.
“What happened?” she asked.
He only groaned in reply. She entwined the fingers of one of his hands into her own, then looked to Erem, who hadn’t moved.
“What is this? Why is he hurting all of a sudden? You said we had time.”
“We did.” Erem remained where he was, muscles taught as a chain at the point of snapping. “Something is aggravating his wound.” The man’s voice was little more than a whisper. He began to look about the small glade they’d stopped in for the night. She saw nothing to look at that. Oaks interspersed with conifers, the red evening sun now halfway below the horizon, glaring through the branches.
A twig snapped off to her right. She twisted around, trying to see while still holding Ferrin steady. The kiss of steel on steel sounded as Erem drew his ebon blade. Silence dragged on like a slow death as she strained her ears to listen.
Pop.
The air before Erem seemed to shimmer. Then, a nightmare was before him. One of the things from the night Ferrin had been wounded. A sort of mindless groan emanated from its hanging mouth as it staggered at Erem. Its close resemblance to a man made its stuttering movements all the more terrible.
Erem swung his blade low, like a cat pouncing. Panther Lunges from Shadows, she thought the form was called, though where she’d seen it before she didn’t know. Whatever the stance, the ebon blade severed the shade’s leg at the hip. She barely caught the gleam of a dark shard protruding from the dismembered limb before the whole fiend crumbled to dust.
“Jenzara.”
She looked down, surprised Ferrin had spoken. To her dismay, he shoved her away, sending her toppling backward. An instant later she was silently thanking him as another shade’s arm swiped through the space her head had occupied a moment before. The ebony crystal sticking from its palm would have taken her right in the temple.
She landed on her back, crying out as her spine slammed onto something hard. Without thinking, she reached beneath herself, hand coming back clutching the sword Erem had tried to force on her moments before. She nearly tossed it aside, but froze as the same shade popped into existence directly above her, the stone protruding from its hand showing like a hawk’s talon, poised to swipe into her face.
“No,” Erem seemed to cry from somewhere far away. She clutched at the sword in terror.
Then she was on her feet, behind the shade that had towered over her. Its hand was off and a second later it went up in a shower of particles that blew away on an evening breeze. She still clutched the sword, so hard her knuckles hurt. But now it was unsheathed, the scabbard held in her off hand like a shield. Her breath caught at the sight of the naked steel. It shone like a rainbow, an entire elemental quintet reflecting back at her. A sword forged with a single element was rare enough. This one held all five.
When she was able to finally take her eyes from the weapon, Erem had already sheathed his sword. There’d been dismay in his cry just seconds earlier, but none showed in his face now. He bent down, helping Ferrin to his feet, then turned to her.
“I needn’t have worried, it seems,” he said, nodding at the sword she held. She still felt an urge to drop it like a hot iron. As far as she could remember, this was the longest she’d ever spent touching a blade. But somehow the sword remained in her hand.
“Yeah,” Ferrin said, pushing away further assistance from Erem while at the same time trying to pretend his shoulder no longer bothered him, rolling his arm in its socket. “Where did you learn that? I’ve never even seen you swing a blade before.”
She frowned. “You know I’ve never learned the sword.”
“Well, you picked up skill somewhere,” Ferrin said.
She waited for him to start laughing, reveal the joke in his words. But he only continued to alternate his gaze from her to the sword and back.
“Come on,” she said. “Just good fortune is all. I was like a scared pup lying in brush just now.”
Erem and Ferrin exchanged a look.
“What?” she demanded.
They looked at each other once more. Erem shrugged.
“Fox Leaps from Tall Grass,” Ferrin said. “It’s an advanced stone-to-fire combination. Looks a lot like what you just did to that shade.”
She laughed. Had they both suddenly gone mad? “Please. I just reacted. You’re seeing diamonds in the peddler’s crystal is all.”
“Perhaps,” Erem said. “But perhaps not. Whichever it is, you’ll hold onto that blade now. You’re going to need it again.”
She opened her mouth to object.
“Don’t be stubborn, Jenzara,” Erem said, voice matching the hardness of his face. “We’re still days from the Crossing, and if the shades know where we are, you can wager this won’t be the last time we’ve need to defend ourselves.”
She looked down to the sword. Almost anyone she’d known at Ral Mok would have traded the roof off their house for elemental steel like this. But all she saw was a motherless childhood.
Erem spoke true, though. She rammed the weapon into its scabbard, dropping it to her side.
“I’ll hold it until we’re safe. But I don’t like it.”
She expected a snort of exasperation from the man. Instead, he gave an approving nod.
“That’s good. You’re more deserving of it than many a blademaster, then.”
While she was still turning the meaning of those words over, Erem hoisted his pack and headed out of the clearing.
“We move on. There’s still light left. And shades don’t sleep.”
32
Devan
The Fifth Lesson: Any event or individual, except for a Constant, can be altered or annihilated in the interest of preserving the True Path.
-From The Lessons
“I STILL DON’T SEE THE point of ye comin’,” Nellis grumbled into his beard. “Ye only anger the Grand Master more each time ye do.”
“Taul Bladesorrow can be angry all he wants, master dwarf. But the Path needs him. He can’t resist its call forever.”
The dwarf said no more, but his skepticism was palpable as they rolled through the cornfield in silence. Perhaps Nellis was right about their prior trips to the clearing. But this time there was news
even Bladesorrow couldn’t turn a blind eye to.
Devan scowled up at the sky. Last time he’d visited it’d hardly been red at all. About three years ago local time, though for Devan it’d been just a handful of days, and mere weeks since he’d saved and yet not saved the Grand Master at Riverdale. And yet, the sky now glowed an unmistakable crimson.
The surge of a channel lurched through Devan’s thoughts. From somewhere up ahead. Were those the sounds of a battle drifting over the green stalks? He grabbed one of Nellis’s wrists without thinking, drawing a disapproving grunt from both the dwarf and one of the oxen pulling their wagon as he caused Nellis to draw the reins taught.
“Faster!”
Devan stood in his seat as the oxen lurched out of the cornfield, towards the sounds of fighting. Visions of Val having broken into the time loop, murdering the Grand Master, swam through his head. It could all come crashing down here. Val’s madness would have won out. Devan’s only solace would be that there’d be no one left to remember him as the Master Horologer who oversaw the Path’s demise. His heart was a drum in his chest. His breath would have been coming in frantic gasps if he hadn’t been holding it.
The wagon finally cleared the cornfield. Devan heaved a relieved sigh.
“You shame me, Taul,” Raldon rasped through deep breaths. He spun his staff about him like a windmill in a gale. “Actually try this time. I’m no student for you to coddle.”
Bladesorrow circled around Ral Mok’s master. Raldon had been about twenty years the Grand Master’s elder, but the difference in age had become more apparent, as Raldon had continued to age while Bladesorrow remained stuck in time. The Grand Master was perhaps half a head taller than Raldon and broader of shoulder, though he’d little more meat to his bones than the other man. Most of it was lean muscle, ready to pounce before one could blink. But Devan also knew Bladesorrow was hardly going to great lengths to take care of himself. If not for Autumn, he wasn’t sure the man would eat at all.
“I’d be more comfortable if we switched to practice blades,” the Grand Master Keeper said. “You know how I feel about the reliability of blunting hexes.”
“That was a tragic accident that happened long ago, my friend. There’s nothing wrong with my channeling. Now defend!”
Raldon’s staff was quick as a scorpion’s tail, yet the Grand Master deflected it away with ease. He was using the ebon blade. Finally embracing his shadow attunement, perhaps? Hopefully that meant the man’s attitude had changed towards other matters as well.
The sparring was a spectacle, even by an Aldur’s standards. The two men circled about one another, stabbing, parrying, and dodging with such flow that it seemed a dance. Devan wasn’t surprised by Bladesorrow. The man had, after all, stood his ground against Devan’s own psychic aptitude weapons, a nearly impossible feat for one who couldn’t use such weaponry. Rather, it was Raldon to whom his eyes continually jumped. He virtually matched Bladesorrow’s speed and precision.
Bladesorrow attacked. Falcons Ascend.
Raldon countered. Water Over High Falls.
Glare Off Morning’s Dew.
Mountains Stand Tall.
Osprey Spreads its Wings.
Their dance went on. The Grand Master’s shoulder-length hair flew about him as he weaved seamlessly from attack to defense back to attack. Raldon’s staff was little more than a blur, deflecting Bladesorrow’s blows and occasionally even landing some of its own. The pair darted about the clearing, their path taking them between the two trees growing beside the house, one fully grown and looming protectively over the structure, the other, which Devan had planted when he’d first brought Bladesorrow here, well into its adolescence now.
Slowly Raldon gave ground, until he was nearly backed up to the house. Sweat glistened on his face; a stark contrast to the tireless precision of the Grand Master’s assault.
Then the hairs on Devan’s arms rose as Raldon, back to the wall, channeled a light hex. Bladesorrow reacted with what could only have been instinct, calling forth a wall of shadow. The hex deflected off it and grazed past Raldon’s head before shattering one of the house’s windows. Ral Mok’s master tumbled to the earth.
“Raldon!” The Grand Master threw his blade to the side and rushed to the fallen man. But Raldon was already sitting up, laughing.
“I thought I’d had you,” Ral Mok’s master panted. “Foolish of me, of course. Trying Samruna on you. It wouldn’t have tricked you before, and with the progress of your shadow channeling I ought not have expected it to now.” He shook his head, smile on his face. “I’ve never seen someone use the shadow to channel a shield before, though. That’s supposed to be your weakness as a shadow attuned—furious attack, but no defense.”
“It’s just what I would have done with the light is all,” Bladesorrow muttered. Now that he saw Raldon was alright he looked like an abashed child.
“That was indeed impressive,” Devan cut in, hopping from the passenger seat of the wagon, his heart once more beating at a normal pace. “Far better than you were doing several weeks ago at Trimale City.”
The Grand Master turned an irritated glare upon him. “That was nearly a decade ago, Angel. What are you doing here?”
Devan replied with a smile. That was one of the benefits of time travel. When things were going too slow for your liking, you could just jump ahead in time. Unfortunately, so far time seemed to have done little to change the Grand Master’s perspective. If anything, he’d become more obstinate. Devan’s smile faded.
“I’m just accompanying the dwarf on his crop pickup. The North isn’t going to feed itself, after all.”
Nellis trundled down from the wagon as he spoke. “Good te’ see ye again, Grand Master. Master Raldon.”
Raldon gave a wave of greeting to the dwarf, but Bladesorrow ignored him.
“You’re never just along for the ride, Angel. What do you want?”
Devan turned his face to the sky. This man would be the end of him. The horizon’s red pall gave him pause though, reminding him of the Path’s dire need.
“Very well, Grand Master. I’ve news of the paradox you need to hear. That you all need to hear.” His eyes roved over Raldon and Nellis.
Raldon’s countenance darkened. He rose, dusting himself off. Nellis’s face paled as he looked away.
“Ye tell ’em what ye need, Aldur Devan. I already heard all I can bear on our ride here. I’ll stay out here, start loadin’ the crops.”
Devan nearly retorted that the ride had been no more than ten minutes. Just long enough to clear the gates of Trimale before peregrinating both of them (not to mention the wagon and oxen) here. But he thought better of it. He’d already told the dwarf the worst of it anyway, and Nellis had nearly toppled from the wagon when he had.
“Well, if you insist on speaking to us,” the Grand Master said, “you’ll have to follow me inside. I’ve got dinner going.” He stomped into the house without waiting to see if they’d follow.
“His att’tude hasn’t improved,” Nellis said once Bladesorrow had disappeared inside.
“No,” Raldon replied, scratching the back of his neck. Devan noted gray streaks in his hair that hadn’t been present the last time he’d seen Ral Mok’s master. “There are moments when I almost see him as he once was,” Raldon continued, “particularly when we spar. But they’re fleeting. He blames himself for all that’s happened since the Disbanding.”
Devan waved a hand at Raldon. “Foolish. The things that have happened are far beyond his control. Possibly beyond anyone’s control.”
Nellis blew out his mustaches at this, and Devan could all but hear Raldon’s frown, but he didn’t give either a chance to speak. He strode after Bladesorrow without saying more. Raldon followed while Nellis began loading the wagon with bundles of corn and beans that the Grand Master had already laid out for him. Devan wondered what Stephan would have said about his having turned one of the Path’s most important figures into a farmer.
Upon enterin
g the house, he found it largely as he remembered it. Armchair before the fire but otherwise bare of decoration save for the map above the mantle. Bladesorrow stood at a table chopping vegetables. Devan stopped in his tracks and stared.
“Is that the shadow Link I gave you?”
Bladesorrow didn’t look up. The flames of the fire burning in the nearby hearth reflected off the red runes set into the dagger he held.
“It’s a knife, Angel. Perhaps it has other uses too, but it’s still just a tool.”
Stephan help me, Stephan help me. He choked back half-a-dozen curses.
“Your dinner will need to wait. I’ve been to Ral Falar and the news isn’t good.”
When the Grand Master continued chopping without reply, Devan reached out to the shadow power within the dagger. He didn’t do anything with it, but it was enough to cause the Grand Master to look up with an impertinent glare. Certainly not the attitude in which Devan had hoped to find him, but at least he had his attention. Besides, there was no easy way to say this, regardless of how the Grand Master was feeling. So he just had to come right out with it.
“The Andstaed was there. Your anti-self. At Ral Falar.”
He might as well have stated that things got wet when it rained, for all the reaction the Grand Master gave. He went back to chopping. Devan considered whether the man would listen more intently if that dagger just happened to slip and slice a few of his fingers.
“Well that’s good, yes?” asked Raldon. “Last we spoke you’d still been unable to find it.”
Devan kept his eyes locked on the Grand Master. “It’s good we know where it is now. Though I almost wish I didn’t, because it wasn’t alone.”
“You mean there are others residing at Ral Falar?” Raldon asked with surprise. “I thought the ruins were abandoned.”
“No. Well yes.” Devan broke his glare at the Grand Master to cast an exasperated gaze at Raldon. “There are Parents stationed at Ral Falar. But that’s not what I’m talking about. The Andstaed. It’s been possessed.”
Taul scoffed. “More child’s tales, Angel? First you say I’ve been split in two. Now you say not only is there a second version of me out there somewhere, but it’s been possessed by something else? What, Tragnè tell, could do that?”
