Bladesorrow (The Agarsfar Saga Book 1)

by D. T. Kane

  “I’ve never been one for politics,” he responded through gritted teeth, “but for once, they came in useful. To disband the Symposium, Valdin must have called for an amendment to the Charter.”

  “So?” Ferrin grunted, still staring at the floor.

  “There are two requirements for such a vote. The one everyone knows, of course, is that such a measure requires a two-thirds vote to pass. But there is a second: The head of each body—Grand Father, Grand Citizen, and, of course, Grand Master Keeper—must be permitted to address the Senate whole before the measure is put to vote. Each is to speak for the body he or she represents. That way there’s never more than three speeches. None of the vote-killing blustering the old Sykt parliament suffered.

  “Usually that latter requirement isn’t an issue. But here, Valdin would have had to move to dispense with the requirement, since no Grand Master Keeper was present. And to justify such a motion, he would have needed to tell the Senate I was dead.”

  Ferrin was silent for a moment. “So there was a procedural fault in the vote. I don’t see how that saved you from summary execution.”

  Taul sighed. “You have to think bigger picture. If there was a defect, that means the vote sanctioning the Disbanding was invalid.” He paused a moment to let this thought take root. “Which further means any measures passed after the Disbanding are invalid.”

  Taul waited for the pieces to fall into place.

  “Oh, that’s clever,” Ferrin finally responded. “Your mere presence calls into question the grounds on which the Edicts themselves stand.” Then, in a voice heavy with revelation, “So that means I’m also owed full due process. That’s why they haven’t killed me yet either?”

  Taul grunted affirmatively, trying once again—unsuccessfully—to find a semi-comfortable position.

  “It also means you’re still Grand Master Keeper,” Ferrin added, with perhaps a hint of unintended awe. “That there still is a Grand Master Keeper.”

  Taul released a bitter chuckle. “I suppose it does, though I’m not sure it will help us much.”

  “I’m surprised it’s helped us at all. If Valdin really is an Aldur, what does he care for respecting due process?”

  “Well,” Taul said, still trying in vain to find a comfortable position. He’d lost nearly all feeling in his hands. “Valdin’s lost his shadow power, so he’s not truly Aldur anymore. He retains great ability still, but he can’t manipulate time and place, so he can’t afford to have all of Tragnè City against him. At least, that’s what I hoped, and it seems I was right, otherwise we wouldn’t be here talking to one another. Killing me in cold blood in front of so many certainly would have raised eyebrows.”

  “And me?” Ferrin asked.

  “He doesn’t just want to kill you. He wants your shadow power. And he can’t very well have harvested it from you in front of the whole City.”

  Taul studied the boy, watching as Ferrin idly fingering the ringed necklace he wore as if it held some sort of power that helped him focus. Somehow, Taul sensed that Valdin wanted the boy dead regardless of his desire to regain power. Which made little sense. Valdin couldn’t actually care about the war with the North, or eradicating shadow attuned from the face of Agarsfar. But why then was he so driven to see Ferrin dead?

  Ferrin gave a muttered laugh laced with sarcasm. “I’d say you’re pretty good at political maneuvering if you worked all that out between the library and that fight on the Quad.”

  Taul frowned. He’d always hated how politicians tried to manipulate others, getting in the way of actual progress.

  “Alright,” Ferrin said. “Say I believe you. What really happened at the Dales, then?”

  Taul grimaced. If he ever had to think of that day again it’d be too soon.

  “It’s a long story. All that really matters is Valdin had himself convinced that if he killed me it would somehow alter the future to his benefit.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. The Angel never told me.”

  Ferrin pursed his lips. “So Valdin managed to kill everyone you brought to the Dales? Even Jenzara’s mother? But you survived?”

  Taul looked away from the boy. He wanted to yell at him. But he deserved every bit of the harsh judgment in his words.

  “Yes.”

  The two of them remained silent for a long while after that. Perhaps the boy was right, that his move had been a clever one. It had kept them breathing, after all. But he doubted Valdin would allow himself to be outmaneuvered for long.

  Finally, Ferrin said warily, “Well, I don’t know what to think of you, Bladesorrow.” The boy spoke his name like one tasting a suspect morsel of food. “But it seems I owe you my life at least twice.”

  Taul could hear just how much this galled the boy to say.

  “So what do we do now? Surely the land’s most famous man since Agar has a grand plan for escape?”

  Taul ignored this obvious attempt to crawl under his skin. “Have you tried an earth channel on the walls here? The collar should only be inhibiting your shadow attunement.”

  Ferrin shook his head. “I did, but whatever they’re using to hide the doors—” He waved a hand in frustration. “Bah! It’s Ral-level earth attunement. The tangle of elements in these walls is an unintelligible maze. And why is it so blasted bright in here?”

  “Moat and wall,” Taul replied. “If the collars fail, the brightness reduces any shadows from which we could draw power.”

  Ferrin cursed again. “I guess I can stop trying to pry this collar off then.” He pounded a fist against the granite wall. “And this won’t do us much good.” The boy slid the ebon dagger from his boot and flipped it into the air, catching it by the hilt.

  Taul’s eyes widened. He instinctually reached out to the power he knew lay locked deep within the weapon. The effort felt like banging his head into a wall, and equally as fruitless. Not even a trickle of shadow reached him through the collar’s elemental restriction.

  “Don’t bother. I’ve been trying to channel from the dagger since they tossed us in here a few hours ago. Drawing from it is different than an ordinary channel. Like you said, it eliminates the Seven’s Call, or reduces it greatly anyway. But the collars block it all the same. I guess I could slit a few throats, at least.”

  Taul gave the boy a glare so vicious Ferrin recoiled as if burned. It spoke far better than any words: You already got my friend killed with your thoughtless acts. Don’t even think of pulling a similar stunt again.

  The boy wordlessly slipped the dagger back into his boot, face red.

  “We need to get out of here,” Ferrin mumbled into the floor. “Jenzara needs me.” Then, glancing up. “Needs us.”

  Those last words seemed pulled from him with a barbed club, but Taul was relieved to hear some sense finally coming from his mouth. And the boy’s unwavering dedication to the girl was admirable, he couldn’t deny that. If only he’d develop some of her level-headedness.

  “We must get ourselves out of this predicament first if we’re to be of any help to Jenzara. We’ll be brought to trial. Soon if I’m not mistaken. Valdin will want to deal with me—us—as quickly as he can, I’m sure. We’ll need to be alert for opportunities to escape when they move us.”

  “Fifth’s chance of that,” Ferrin replied, any trace of humility that had been in his voice seconds before now gone. “I wouldn’t be surprised if half the Temple’s assigned to escort us to court.”

  Taul nodded as much as his stretched position would allow. “Aye. Plus, we’re almost certainly in the dungeons beneath the Temple. Either they’ll take us through the tunnels that lead directly to the Senate, or parade us through the Quadrangle. Probably the latter. Make a spectacle of us. Valdin will be in a foul state after what I did.”

  “Well, I studied enough maps to have a rough idea of the tunnels down here,” Ferrin said. “But little good that will do unless someone breaks us free.”

  Taul sighed, though it sounded more like a groan. For o
nce, he found himself wishing he’d played politics as Rikar had counseled. Then at least maybe he’d have more friends left in the City. But such thoughts were useless now; dwelling on regrets was about as senseless as putting out the fire before checking if the meat was cooked.

  “Let’s hope the Angel is as set on protecting me as he makes himself out to.”

  Ferrin screwed up his face for a moment, as if trying to recall a dream.

  “So he really is an Angel? I didn’t hallucinate that?”

  “He’s an Angel, alright. Hard to be around him for more than a minute without him making an effort to remind you of it.”

  Ferrin shrugged, a gesture of which, at that moment, Taul was quite envious. “I probably would too, if I had such powers. Then again, if I had such powers, Jenzara’d already be rescued and we wouldn’t be chained up in here. What I wouldn’t give for a few lessons from him.”

  The boy seemed oblivious to the implied insult his words held to Taul’s own teaching. Or perhaps he truly was that inconsiderate. Either way, Taul ignored it. “Devan’s not much of a teacher. Doesn’t have time for us Linears.”

  “He seemed plenty interested in you when he—” Ferrin’s face reddened, his face contrasting sharply with the brightly lit walls. “When he dove in front of that fire hex I channeled at you. I suppose I owe you an apology for that. Though I still think you’re an idiot for what you led Jenzara and I into without warning.”

  Taul felt a sudden need to rub at his temples and growled to himself when he remembered his hands couldn’t move. He didn’t dispute the boy’s words.

  “Devan only has regard for me because he thinks I can help him save his precious True Path. Says Valdin did something to me at the Dales that started a chaos on the Path and he can’t solve it without me. Rubbish.”

  Ferrin frowned. Taul didn’t care for the thoughtful look that came over his face.

  “That actually sounds serious. Weren’t you just telling Jenzara and I that there’s only ever been one chaos-level event? And that it nearly ended everything?”

  Taul grunted, partly because the chains still prevented a full scoff, but also because he’d heard some undesirable truth in the boy’s words.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he finally responded. “No use worrying about the Angel’s problems while we’re trapped here.”

  “If it’s actually a chaos event,” Ferrin went on, not falling for Taul’s effort to end this line of talk, “isn’t it a lot more than just Devan’s problem? Bleeding shadows! If a chaos is as bad as you said, time could already be changing. This whole predicament we’re in could be some alternate strand that isn’t meant to exist. Isn’t it a little selfish to refuse your aid in the face of such stakes?”

  Taul shut his eyes. He’d already come to that conclusion, but hearing it from Ferrin, of all people, made him feel all the worse for his petty self-loathing. A large part of him still wanted nothing more than to be back in the clearing, left out of all this... wrongness. As Westcott had so eloquently put it. But he couldn’t rip from his mind all the ills he’d seen in the short time since Jenzara and the boy had barged in on his hermitage. The girl’s thoughtless bigotry. The repression of Ferrin’s true abilities, the lies he’d been fed forcing him to live a lie. And the edges of Taul’s eyes still burned at the memory of those wretched homeless folk living in the dark alleys of the Symposium. Even Tragnè City, City of Light, was a beacon no longer. Was it possible helping Devan could change that?

  “You’re Taul Bladesorrow.” This seeming non sequitur shook Taul from his thoughts.

  “Taul Bladesorrow,” Ferrin repeated. “The man who performed the first Invocation in nearly a millennium. Healed Atux, son of Rikar Bladesong, when his death seemed a certainty. Surely that could get us out of here?”

  The names of Taul’s adopted family, both now long dead at the hands of a still-unknown assassin, sent waves of discomfort rolling through his gut. Far more painful than the ache of his strung-up arms. The burning in his eyes returned and he clenched the muscles at the edges of them, wishing desperately he had a free hand to wipe them. Or his solar specs to cover them.

  “Yes, I once channeled an Invocation of light. Once. Never a second time.”

  “But that’s incredible,” Ferrin said. “Everything I’ve read compares it to the Aldur’s powers. Ones who can call up an Invocation have other abilities. See bits of the future. Use the Aldur’s weapons. Many say Tragnè was like that, with power far exceeding what any ordinary man or woman ought to be capable of.”

  Taul sighed. “It’s not like that with me. I’ve no special powers.” His voice was dry as a panther’s tongue on a hot day. “And there’s the small matter of my transformation.”

  “Transform...? Oh, right. You aren’t exactly light attuned anymore.” Then, as if the strangeness of that fact had just struck Ferrin, “How did that happen?”

  Taul leapt at this opportunity to shift away from Rikar and Atux. “The Angel said it’s a result of whatever Valdin did to me. He attacked me with a shadow heart.”

  Ferrin let out a whistle, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t think people came back from stuff like that. What does Devan think about one of his own people attacking the great Taul Bladesorrow with a relic from the Elsewhere?”

  Taul thought on that for a moment. Had he ever actually told Devan that Valdin had been the one to stab him with the cursed thing? Not the Terror?

  “I know you were powerful in the light,” Ferrin said, apparently taking his silence as a refusal to answer. “But I’ve seen what you do with the shadow; you’re certainly no pushover with that either. Ever tried to do the Invocation with shadow instead? What does the shadow variant do anyway?”

  Taul shook his head. “You don’t understand. The Invocation wasn’t something I did intentionally. I had a great need and focused all my will on it, and... it just happened. And even if it was something I could have done at will... Light? Shadow? Bah!” He rattled at the chains holding him erect. Memories of gut-wrenching frustration from the days and years when he’d first come to grips with his shadow attunement welled up within him. The sad trickles of shadow power it’d taken him so long to master in that courtyard at Second Symposium in Trimale.

  “It’s just not the same. I won’t be able to save us that way.”

  Ferrin sighed. The look on his face was uncomfortably similar to the one Taul had faced from Raldon that night at the clearing, when Raldon had first discovered Taul still lived.

  “Then let’s hope Devan can save us again,” Ferrin muttered.

  Taul had no reply other than silent agreement.

  44

  Valdin

  Agar’s Annual. The tournament held each year in honor of the country’s namesake. It draws the greatest weapons masters from all corners of Agarsfar, and sometimes even beyond, inducing exotic warriors from the other Seven Realms to visit Agarsfar’s shores. To the victor goes a blade of elemental steel, crafted at the Symposium forges.

  - From the preface to the Millennial Printing of Tragnè’s Oral Histories, written by Rikar Bladesong

  HE AWOKE GRIPPING THE tatters of his ripped bedsheet. It clung to his wrinkled body like the tunic of a man caught in a driving rain, the shredded linen reminding him of the threadbare covering that had fallen from the hilt of the man’s sword yesterday.

  Taul Bladesorrow. Alive. And not just alive, but here. In Tragnè City. It was impossible. Valdin had done all that was required to open the way for the Seven to possess the man. A shadow heart infused with all the elements, set forth in a living host. No man could survive such a trauma. An Aldur perhaps. But no man.

  It had worked, after a fashion. The Seven were in Bladesorrow’s body. They had their host. They just remained trapped in Ral Falar, unable to stray from the rift in time Stephan had created. All this time, he’d assumed something had gone wrong. Or perhaps that Stephan hadn’t revealed all that was needed to completely release the Seven.

  But now he saw. Th
ere was another version of Bladesorrow still on the Path, free of the Seven’s grasp, interfering with the process that ought to have released them entirely. The same man, existing twice in the same time. A paradox. And that could mean only one thing.

  Devan. He’d meddled, gone back and stopped Bladesorrow from dying, figuring it would resolve the rogue strand Valdin had created.

  But Devan hadn’t known of the Seven. Valdin hadn’t told him of the deal he’d struck with them before their battle that night at the Conclave. So instead of eliminating an aberrant tributary, Devan’s action had done something closer to causing the rogue strand to merge into the Path. Two versions of the same time overlapping, with two Bladesorrows existing at once.

  What I would have given to have been there when Devan realized what he’d done. Thinking he’d bested me only to see his worst fears realized. He got just what he—

  Stop that. This wasn’t about retribution. What Devan had done potentially jeopardized existence itself. While Valdin could no longer sense the Path, he had no doubt of the sorry state it must be in by this time. No wonder the skies had been getting redder by the year. The fires binding the Path together were literally turning against it. Consuming it like a disease. It was frankly amazing that Devan had held it together for this long.

  An odd thought occurred to him then. Was it possible Devan was behind all these recent events? Perhaps he was the one responsible for Valdin having gone to Ral Mok in the first place, the first link in the chain that had led him to this point?

  Devan was calculating enough to do so. But it didn’t really matter. All Valdin had learned pointed to a single truth, that killing Bladesorrow—the one here in Tragnè City, what Falconwing would probably have called the remnant half—was now all the more pressing. If the remnant continued to live, the Path would continue to deteriorate until chaos reigned. Existence itself would cease.

  There was a possible alternative: Allowing the remnant Bladesorrow to annihilate with the anti-Bladesorrow—the Andstaed—at Ral Falar. That might also save the Path. If the two touched it would wipe them both out, which in theory could resolve the paradox and the entire rogue strand it had created.