Bladesorrow (The Agarsfar Saga Book 1)

by D. T. Kane

  No. This couldn’t be. Everyone knew what had happened at Riverdale. What the Betrayer had done. She felt a tear slide down her cheek.

  “But,” the Grand Father proclaimed, face seeming to brighten in the gloom, “if we had another witness to decry him. One who spent several days in the company of the despicable man.” He looked at her with cold, calculating eyes, waiting for his words to register.

  He wanted her to testify against Bladesorrow? Nothing would bring her greater pleasure than to see the man strung up. But that would mean helping the man who’d killed father. Her mind couldn’t even fathom what his reaction would be if he heard she agreed to help Valdin. Worse still, try as she might, she couldn’t actually think of a single negative thing Erem had done. He’d even discouraged killing any Parents. Landslides! Either the man was even more devious than she’d imagined—and she’d thought plenty of terrible things of the Betrayer—or there was something more to all this.

  “You must be more deluded than I thought if you think I’d help you.” But even she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice. The confidence she’d so recently used to openly argue with Erem had fled her.

  Valdin clicked his tongue, like a hunter might chastise a disobedient mutt. “My lady, as I said. It’s not for me, but these poor souls around us.” He looked down at his fingernails, then added, as if it hardly mattered, “And for your dear friend, young Ferrin.”

  “What do you mean?” She was going to be sick; so much scheming.

  The Grand Father’s lips were a thin line. “Your friend is a criminal, in the same wretched fraternity as those about us. Bladesorrow has wrangled us into giving the boy a trial as well, but even his defiance of the Edicts aside, the lad is a murderer. Half-a-dozen Parents, including a Priest, and a child. You haven’t even heard of what he did in the library.”

  She teetered and had to lean against a nearby wall. “He thought he was protecting me,” she whispered, immediately feeling foolish at the weakness of her words. Ferrin had been free in the City? And killed more Parents? What had the shadow done to him?

  “My lady, listen to yourself. Protect you? From Parents carrying out their legally sanctioned duty?”

  “You mustn’t hurt him,” she murmured. “I...” the words caught in her throat. “Just. Don’t.”

  The Grand Father stared at her for a long time, as if contemplating whether to speak any further.

  “Perhaps,” he finally said, “If someone were to testify on his behalf and against his co-conspirator, some leniency could be arranged. A shame you have refused to—”

  “I’ll do it,” she blurted. “Just tell me what to say.”

  She expected to see a realization of triumph in the man’s eyes. Gloating at having successfully backed her into a corner. Truthfully, she wanted to see that, as it would further justify her hatred of the man. But all she saw was stern resolution, as if he were doing a job he detested the best way he knew how. And was there even a suggestion of disappointment in the turn of his mouth?

  “Good. Let us leave this place then and discuss your testimony.”

  The Grand Father began to depart, but one of the guards murmured something and he stopped.

  “Yes,” he said. “Grab one of the children. We need a replacement after what happened at the Crossing.”

  The Parents stepped into the darkness. One emerged a moment later with a screaming child held out in front of him, gripped under the arms. A woman wailed. The other Parent beat a man bloody who tried to intervene, then cursed at the sobbing woman to be silent.

  Jenzara clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from vomiting, turning away from the scene.

  With child in tow, the Grand Father and Parents exited. They didn’t wait for her, presuming she’d have no desire to remain in the dark with a bunch of shadow attuned. Which, of course, she did not. But for several moments she remained, face pressed into the wall’s oppressive stone. She tried to tell herself that the Grand Father could have just forced her compliance, but that did nothing to quell the roiling in her stomach, or the image of the struggling, screaming child.

  She let out a scream of her own at a sudden grab of her arm. Opening her eyes, she saw Oceanshade. One of the Parents reappeared at the entrance to the chamber, apparently having heard her exclamation.

  “Is it true?” he demanded. “The Grand Master Keeper lives?” His face was twisted in desperation. Jenzara recoiled. The Parent pulled Oceanshade back and punched him in the gut. He collapsed to the ground, yet somehow retained enough air to rasp a few more words.

  “You see the gaps in Valdin’s words. I saw your face. Tell Taul. Tell him we stand with him. The Symposium lives!”

  Then the Parent kicked the man in the groin. He gurgled, no breath left to moan, and curled into a ball. Jenzara fled down the hall, out of the camp. But Frankard Oceanside’s pleading eye stayed with her, burned into her mind like a judge’s pronouncement of guilt.

  46

  Devan

  Before the Cataclysm, the Aldur numbered in the hundreds. Talented Linears often petitioned the Conclave for testing, seeking to join our ranks.

  Then came the Cataclysm, and the Great Chaos that followed; a vast majority of our number lost to the Seven. After that, the Linears ceased to seek us out, leaving the Aldur to search for the few Quinti the Path produced.

  It is not hyperbole to say that we are now a race on the brink of extinction. May the Path soon send new additions to swell our ranks.

  -Excerpt from Stephan Falconwing’s Commentaries on The Lessons

  THE MEMORY PARLOR LOOKED like a pack of ravenous lions had charged through it. Books were cast about indiscriminately over the whole of the chamber, stacked ten tall on the velvet armchair, propped against the rearing lion of the statue named Shadow Falls. Myriad titles such as Encyclopedia Agarian, Volume F and Ancient Relics for the Uninitiated. Half-burned candles were scattered about as well, leaving stains of melted wax upon the floor. The embers in the hearth had nearly burned out.

  Devan sat in the midst of it all, cross legged, bent so far over a tome his nose nearly touched the vellum. Muttering, he scratched out a note on a nearby piece of parchment, then tossed the volume aside. The sound of quill on paper was almost painful in the stillness of the room. He glanced down at his scrawls. It had been a long time since he’d considered this topic. The scar at the edge of his eye itched, but he ignored it.

  Quintis was the term used to describe one attuned to all five of the elements. One who had the potential to become an Aldur. In the days before the Cataclysm, Quinti had been relatively common. It hadn’t been unheard of for Linears to demand audience with the Conclave, to be subjected to tests of their ability. They’d used elemental seers to root the pretenders out, of course. For the few who had the gift, the true test was whether they could peregrinate. It was no easy path, achieving the needed mastery. And that was the only route to becoming Aldur. There were no entry fees, examinations, or votes. You could not impress your way into the Conclave. Either you could peregrinate or you couldn’t.

  Even back in those early days, as many as nine in ten Quinti never achieved peregrination. And many of those perished in the trying, burning themselves out from the effort or going insane while considering the infinite possibilities of the Path. Those who survived their failures sometimes stayed on as faithful servants to the Conclave. But they remained Linears. Without peregrination, they could never escape the bonds of their brief, undeviating lives.

  Since the Cataclysm, failures had become more prevalent. Almost as if the Path had decided to wipe its hands of the Aldur after the atrocities of the Seven. Since he’d been raised to the Conclave, Devan had only seen a handful of Quinti even come into existence. None had become Aldur. He considered whether he could have missed some, or even just one, what with the upheaval on the Path since Val’s betrayal. The Path was difficult to read in its current, frayed state. But he doubted it. The appearance of a Quintis on the Path was an anomaly of the queerest ki
nd, an event new to the Path, but one that didn’t require correction like most other random alterations. Creation of a new, benign history out of nothing. An exception to the conservation principles. No. Unless another Aldur had purposefully hidden a Quintis, he could not have missed a new one.

  But he could still hope. He was hardly able to fill the void left by the ten Val had murdered. Perhaps, one day, the Path would realize this and send him some help. The Path could self-correct, fixing some anomalies of its own accord. Why not do so by creating a new Aldur? Devan wasn’t going to hold his breath, though. It seemed that if the Path was going to do so, then it would have done so already. And if the Grand Master Keeper didn’t cease with his childish stubbornness soon, there would be no Path left to protect.

  Sighing, he folded the paper and shoved it under one of the books on his writing desk. He’d work to attend. The Grand Master Keeper was about as far from where he needed to be as was possible without leaving Agarsfar altogether. That he was bent on rescuing the girl, Jenzara, was annoying enough. But there was also this Ferrin. The man clearly felt responsible for the lad. Saw something in him. If there was any hope of changing the man’s mind, the lad would have to factor in as well. Bladesorrow couldn’t take any more tragedy in his life.

  And therein lay the complication. The lad needed even more protection than the Grand Master Keeper. At least Bladesorrow was stable, clear headed (if unbelievably stubborn and piteously morose). The lad was like a lit fire upon a crate of lamp oil. He’d nearly incinerated the Grand Master in a moment of anger. Think of the damage he could do to himself and those around him if truly unleashed. Devan frowned and scratched at the fresh scars the boy had put on his right arm. They stood out on his skin, an angry scarlet against the healed-over ones that Val had dealt him.

  Locking fingers together, Devan stretched, letting out a yawn that surely would have been obnoxious had anyone been around to hear.

  “What are we going to do about all this, Agar?” he muttered to the statue.

  He flipped open Stephan’s chronometre to see if it was yet time to follow the Grand Master and the lad to the City.

  Splintered trees fallen upon the Path during a blizzard!

  The timepiece showed it had been more than a week since he’d sent the two off to the City. He’d lost track of time here in the parlor. Cursing his carelessness, he shut his eyes.

  And opened them to find himself lying on his back, looking up at the waytower in which the lad and Grand Master had hidden from the Minna Hraeda. Warm sun beat down on his face. Grass pulled at the back of his neck as he lifted his head for the first time in seven days. He briefly considered going back a few days, but quickly ruled it out. Crossing your own timeline was tricky business, often dangerous. Besides, how much trouble could Bladesorrow have gotten into in a week?

  Actually, he didn’t quite like the potential answers to that question. Without wasting another moment, he peregrinated.

  And now he lay prone on the cobbles of a busy street. Perhaps he should have taken the time to first rise, but he’d been in a hurry. He shook the sleep from his eyes just in time to see a cart and two very startled oxen blundering straight at him. He rolled to one side like a wine barrel to avoid being crushed under hoof. Right into a gutter.

  A sewage channel. Lovely.

  Sputtering and wiping muck from his robe and face, Devan, last of the mighty Aldur, rose, dripping dank, brown water. It was nearly noon; the Obelisk cast hardly any shadow.

  The Quadrangle was busy even for midday. There seemed to be quite a commotion coming from the direction of the Senate steps. A crowd buzzing with eager—and perhaps also nervous—energy. His wet sandals slapped against the ground as he pushed towards the front of the gathering.

  Angry jeers arose from the gathered people as he reached the Senate. Potholes in the Path! Half the City must have been gathered. What in Stephan’s name was going on? He got himself to a higher vantage point, ascending towards the top of the porch that spanned the Senate’s length.

  The crowd had parted, creating a passage from the Temple to the Senate. Parents, maces bared, were holding the crowd back from a procession of still more Parents. These latter ones were Priests, armed with ceremonial polearms nearly a height in length. They’d donned formal sashes that hung around their necks and nearly scraped the cobbles. Golden suns etched into the cloth sparkled in the noon-time light.

  In the midst of the procession stumbled two men, heavily chained and blindfolded. They were bound together at the waist with iron chain links and being led by a Priest distinguished by a red sash over his white robes. Shinzar, if Devan wasn’t mistaken. And he rarely was. It was a little disappointing, to be honest. Just another of the Temple’s sham trials to keep the masses in line with the Edicts. Remind them of the price for being born a certain way.

  “Betrayer!” an anonymous member of the crowd cried. Others took up the cry. A rotten vegetable flew from somewhere in the crowd, splattering at the chained men’s feet.

  Oh. Those weren’t just any two men being dragged towards the Senate. One with broad shoulders and brown hair tied back. The other slimmer, but nearly as tall with hair the color of burnt brick. The larger man seemed to have been beaten quite severely and moved with stunted, stiff shuffles. Yet he somehow managed to project a quiet confidence. The other shouted retorts at the jeers of the crowd. The necks of both men were weighed down by iron collars that glowed with a subtle hint of elemental enhancement.

  It appeared he’d arrived just in time. Devan hurried down from his perch on the Senate steps. He’d need some clean clothes for the task ahead. And he’d have to do something about his hair.

  47

  Ferrin

  RULE: Hearsay, an out-of-court statement offered for its truth, is inadmissible evidence in any legal proceeding before an Agarian tribunal.

  COMMENT: Sykt’s Monarch often used unverified hearsay evidence to convict rivals and suppress opposition. Such practice was quickly outlawed in the courts of Agarsfar after its founding.

  -Excerpt from The Law of Things

  THE BLINDFOLD HAD SLIPPED over Ferrin’s nose, making it hard to breathe. Beads of moisture formed on his upper lip where the cloth stuck, stinging like wind rash. For what must have been the dozenth time he tried to wipe at his face, only to find his hands manacled behind his back. Sweat rolled down his spine like blood from a puncture, thick and clinging.

  They’d blindfolded him and Ere... Taul—shades, that still sounded so strange—down in the dungeon and marched them up what’d seemed thousands of stairs totally blind. So much for keeping an eye out for a chance at escape. He’d have laughed if there was any moisture left in his mouth.

  A slight shift in light coming through the blindfold alerted him they were now outside. Well, that and the crowd screaming obscenities. “Fifth” was one of the nicer epithets being tossed around. More than one voice bellowed accusations of him having performed quite explicit acts of physical vulgarity with the shadow. He tried to retort, but each breath burned after the exertion of climbing the stairs, and the tight knot of the veil had created a pulsing in his temples. Salty sweat slid into his mouth.

  He stumbled and the butt of a spear struck him in the small of the back. Not giving the Parent the pleasure of a pained cry, he clamped his teeth shut and growled. His throat burned as if he’d just swallowed sanding paper. What felt—and smelled—like a rotten vegetable crashed into the side of his head. This was not turning out to be the best of days. If they were going to kill him, he wanted to face it with open eyes. This blindness had planted a dreadful uncertainty in the gorge of his stomach.

  Finally, their captors ordered a halt. Moments later, the covering was ripped from his head, though little good it did—now he was just blinded by the high-noon sunlight. Unable to shield his eyes, he tried to squint, but to little avail. Before sight returned, a hand shoved him forward and he nearly fell on his face before realizing there were steps before him.

  He hear
d Taul being forced along next to him. The man was certainly stoic, Ferrin had to give him that. He’d hung from the ceiling of their tiny cell for nearly three days, toes barely scraping the floor. Never once had he complained or even expressed discomfort, though the abuse had clearly taken its toll. The man’s breath came in hot, rasping blurts.

  Beyond the man’s endurance, however, Ferrin still had little idea what to think of the former Grand Master Keeper. Before his alleged betrayal, the man had been a living legend. Master of everything—blades, light. Agar’s might! The man had even spent the better part of four years holed up in the Symposium library doing nothing but researching its ancient tomes. No wonder he knew so much.

  But Ferrin had spent nearly his whole life hearing of the man’s terrible plot, and how the valorous Grand Father Valdin had saved the land from it. Of course, by now he’d seen there was little truth in the reports of Valdin’s greatness, which ought to have made him question everything else he’d grown up hearing. And yet, Agarian society had virtually been built on the assumption of Bladesorrow’s betrayal. The Disbanding. The Edicts. He’d never put much stock in it all. Even before discovering his shadow attunement he’d thought the Edicts a ridiculous overreaction concocted by a bunch of frightened bureaucrats. But he’d never really questioned the basic premise that Bladesorrow had been a traitor. After all, Riverdale truly did lay in ruins, uninhabited ever since the Betrayal. Could it all really be a lie? Created by a treacherous fallen Angel to justify his systematic murder of shadow attuned until he found one strong enough to restore his abilities?

  Ferrin didn’t want to believe that, but Bladesorrow’s retort the previous day had carried too much sense for Ferrin to ignore. If the former Grand Master Keeper truly had been the corrupt, power-hungry betrayer he’d been made out to be, then certainly he wouldn’t have remained dormant for so long. Most certainly not in Falume with a secret portal to the study of Raldon Everbright.