Bladesorrow (The Agarsfar Saga Book 1)

by D. T. Kane

He opened his eyes on a sleeping chamber, a four-post bed dominating its center. A stained-glass window stood ajar to one side, a sizeable armoire on the opposite wall. Pre-dawn gloaming wafted through the window, tinged red like firelight. Shouts and grunts of pain emanated from beyond the window, somewhere below. Sounds of battle.

  “I knew you wouldn’t be long in coming.”

  Devan whirled, ready to throw up a shield. But no channel came. Val sat in an unlit corner, shadows obscuring his features save for his eyes, which burned in the gloom. Their stares locked. This was the first time Devan had been alone with him since the night at the Conclave. Only a few months ago in Devan’s personal time, but in Val’s local time it had been much longer. Fifteen years or thereabouts, if he had the calculations right.

  Raw anger mixed with crushing angst as he looked upon his one-time friend. He’d noticed some change in his appearance in the Senate, but he’d been relatively far away there. Up close Val looked terrible. Aldur weren’t immortal, they aged and could eventually die from it, though Devan hadn’t lived long enough to ever see it happen. Stephan must have been nearing ten thousand and he’d barely had a gray hair on him. The physical change Val had undergone in just fifteen years would have taken millennia in an Aldur. His once thick, mahogany hair had become gray and wispy. The lines of his face were like cracks in stone, sharp but unstable. Even his eyes had lost vibrance, though whether from age or all the horrors he’d wrought, it was impossible to say.

  “Oh, Val,” Devan murmured, the words much less cutting than he’d intended. Almost consoling. He had to blink several times and clear his throat before continuing, the scar at his eye’s edge burning. “How could you have done it? Stephan trusted you with that secret. It was never to be used.”

  Val said nothing, allowing the silence to stretch on. A gentle breeze floated in through the window, rustling the bed drapes. The shouting that had been coming from below seemed to have ceased.

  “I’m finished justifying my actions,” Val finally said, voice soft and distant. “The injustice the Conclave wrought was unforgiveable. I had to do something. What I did was the only option available to break the Path’s circling, create a new future where she could live.”

  Potential retorts flew through Devan’s mind. The realization that Val’s love, Devan’s own student, had posed too grave a threat to let live, and that he’d have to be the one to carry out the execution, had been the worst moment of his life. But if it meant keeping the Path safe, he’d do it a thousand times more. And no injustice, no matter how grave, was worth righting at the cost Val had exacted.

  “I can’t let you go on, Val. Perhaps what you’ve done with the Seven could have been forgiven, though I’m not sure how. But murdering the others so your plot could succeed?”

  Val abruptly rose from his seat. Devan reacted without thought, calling up a shield with his psychic weapons, the rings on his fingers thrumming with reassuring energy. But Val just stood there, silently shaking.

  “I did not kill them.”

  Devan swallowed, not lowering his shield. The conviction in Val’s tone was so strong it was difficult to know how to proceed. Had he really become so deranged by grief and rage that he’d fooled himself into believing such lies?

  “You—” Val clamped his jaw shut as if forcing himself to keep back a closely held secret. “This is all your fault.”

  Devan’s lips settled into a thin line. “I will not take the blame for your atrocities, Val.” He spoke at a volume barely above a whisper. “Yes, I was the one to carry out the Conclave’s final order. But don’t you dare blame me for all the crimes you perpetrated after the fact.”

  Val barked a laugh. “You speak of my crimes, yet you’ve come to kill me. What does the Third Lesson say?”

  An Aldur Shall Never Kill Another Aldur.

  Devan peered deep into Val’s eyes, searching for anything left to redeem. But the friend he’d once known was gone. He almost wished that Val was right about his purpose here.

  “I’m not here to kill you, Val. But you’re too dangerous to retain even the fraction of freedom you continue to possess.”

  The self-righteous façade of Val’s face cracked like a windowpane smashed by a rock.

  “Noktus Tor?” he whispered.

  A tower jutting from the sea off Agarsfar’s coast. Built of elemental stone impervious to channeling. No windows. Once chained within, there was no way to peregrinate out.

  “The Conclave had hoped never to use it,” Devan said. “But after what the Third Lesson forced Stephan to do with the Seven, it had to be built. I always thought it a waste of resources, but once more the gestalt proves wiser than the individual.”

  For several moments more, Val continued to look as if he might be ill. Then his face hardened, his shoulders taking a resolved set.

  “I won’t let you bring me there for a crime that wasn’t mine.”

  The flick of Val’s wrist was quick as an eyelash, and Devan barely felt his channel. But the projection hit him like a boulder. It wasn’t as vivid as the one he’d used at the trial earlier, as Val lacked control over all five elements. But it was enough. For a moment it was as if he was falling down a deep hole.

  He was in the Conclave. Just as he’d found it that terrible day. Smashed tables, bodies strewn all about. The smells of death and smoke suffocating him.

  Except it wasn’t entirely the same. Val was there, crouched over the form of...

  Stephan. Still alive. Tears welled in Devan’s eyes.

  Val was kneeling beside him. Blood flowed from a gaping gash at Stephan’s neck, any deeper and it’d have taken his head clean off. As he watched, he felt Val channel, drawing light from the Conclave’s elemental shrine. But not a hex. Healing. Directed at Stephan.

  It was far too little too late. Stephan’s life blood was already spent, in a puddle on the floor about him, soaked into his robes. And Val’s. Still, there was no fear in his face, no angst in his eyes. He motioned for Val to lean closer. A still-young Val, with the dark hair and fair skin of an Aldur in his prime.

  “Soon,” Stephan gasped. “Soon you will see Devan again. You must not tell him what transpired here.”

  “What? You can’t be serious? He’ll think—”

  Even moments from death, Stephan was able to silence Val with a mere glare.

  “He cannot know. It will ruin him if you tell. Maybe threaten the Path itself. Remember The Lessons.”

  Val bowed his head, but didn’t argue further. Stephan began to ramble, as if trying to fit in as many words as he could before the ability left him. Before life left him.

  “And you must stop him. Devan’s new student. A threat to us all. I made a terrible mistake. Save us. Kill him if you must. A Quintis. Powerful... in the shadow. From Bladesorrow’s time. In the South. His name...”

  “New student?” Val said. “But he doesn’t have one. Not since—”

  Stephan gasped, convulsed once, then went limp in Val’s arms. A sob welled in Devan’s throat. Val shook Stephan, but received no response.

  “His name? What is it? Who must I stop?”

  Light sprung to Val’s fingertips once more, channeled into the unmoving form, searching for a hurt to heal. But there was nothing left. No life to hold together. No wound to bind or living flesh to mend.

  Val’s fingers shook as he drew the man’s eyes shut.

  “You memory shall endure forever,” he intoned.

  The scene swirled about him, evaporating like steam. Devan gasped as his eyes opened. Impossible. It had to be a lie. He’d never heard of a projection being fabricated, but if Val was meddling with enchantment, who knew what else he’d discovered to warp the mind. There were too many inconsistencies in what he’d been shown. Val trying to save Stephan? Stephan’s last words? Which of The Lessons could possibly bar Val from revealing what had happened? And a new student? He hadn’t taken a pupil since Val’s love.

  Devan realized he was on the floor, looking up to the ceiling. Te
nsing, he tried to push himself up, only to find he was pinned by an invisible force. Val stood over him, face unreadable.

  “I went there to tell them what I’d done,” Val said. “I knew the Conclave wouldn’t undo it. Once I gave Bladesorrow to the Seven there was no turning back. They wouldn’t release their grip on him willingly; the Conclave couldn’t go back to stop what I did, not without risking a paradox.” Val gave a grim laugh that did nothing to alter his hollow stare. “I’d beaten Stephan at his own game. My actions annihilated a Constant, and he couldn’t be replaced. An irreparable rogue strand. The only way the Conclave could contain the Seven would be to annihilate Bladesorrow, forcing the Path in a new direction.

  “It seemed a perfect plan. I knew the others would be able to contain the threat posed by the Seven. Once done, they would have been able to go about stabilizing the Path. Perhaps they’d have killed me. Or banished me to Noktus Tor. But they’d have taken care of the Seven, and in so doing forged a new Path. One where perhaps she wouldn’t have to die.”

  Devan tried to speak, but he found Val’s channel was holding his lips shut.

  “They were all alive when I arrived that night. But then...” He faltered, a tear rolling from his eye. “There’s much I still can’t tell you. The Path’s already bad enough off as it is, without me violating The Lessons. But you heard Stephan. I have to stop you. Doubly so now, with the mess of a paradox you’ve created.” He opened his mouth to say more, then shut it, lips compressing, as if waging an internal battle. “I don’t suppose you’d agree to forego resolving the paradox?”

  The flows of Val’s channel eased enough for Devan to grunt out a response. It felt as if a mountain were sitting on his chest.

  “You’re speaking madness, Val. How could you possibly think I’d agree to that?”

  Val frowned down at him, a sadness at the edges of his eyes that disturbed Devan. He wanted his old friend to simply be a villain, devoid of any reason for his sympathy.

  “The odds that resolving the paradox will make things worse are at least equal to it fixing things. Look what happened with those poor souls the Seven annihilated before the Cataclysm. It slowly ripped the Path apart. And even if it does work, it would mean she is still lost. Please, Devan, consider it.”

  Devan glared back up at Val, not daring to let the words’ impact show in his eyes. “You won’t manipulate me with tragedies of the past. I don’t know how you did that, with the projection. But it can’t have been real. I don’t even have a student. Not since her. I can’t let—”

  The channel’s flows squeezed shut on his vocal cords. Val shook his head.

  “You’ve met the lad. You must know about him by now.”

  The lad? Realization dawned on him and he forced out a response.

  “You think it’s Ferrin. You’re using that farce of a projection to justify your intent to murder him?”

  Val looked away.

  “Val. You don’t have to do—”

  His once friend held up a hand, face cold as iron. Devan let his words trail into oblivion.

  “No more, Devan. Maybe killing you would mean Ferrin doesn’t have to die too. After all, he can’t become your student if you’re dead.” Val inhaled deeply, staring down upon him like a soldier lamenting his responsibility to a lamed mare. “But that’s a risk I cannot take. Goodbye. My friend.”

  Devan felt him reach to the early-morning light coming in from the window, drawing in power enough for a hex to kill ten men. So this was where it ended. Here he would fall, and in all likelihood the Path with him. Val would run it to ruin, and there’d be no Aldur left to save it.

  Val sucked in breath, balling up the power he’d gathered. They locked eyes, Val’s face expressive as a statue. The set of his shoulders tensed. His power continued to build. Devan continued to stare. He would meet death with eyes open.

  Val turned his back, looking away from him.

  “Is this really the only way?” he muttered. He hadn’t released the power he’d gathered, but he also hadn’t unleashed it yet.

  Devan jumped at the glimmer of hope. “Maybe there is another way, Val.” He’d no idea what that way was, and he still fully intended to imprison Val for the rest of his days. But each extra moment of breath was an opportunity to think of something.

  Val said nothing. The silence stretched on so long Devan began to doubt if Val had heard him. He lifted his head to look in Val’s direction. He lifted his...

  The bonds of Val’s channel were gone. Devan leapt to his feet, readying a channel of his own. Val stood there, unmoving, one hand lifted to his head. Still as death.

  “Val?”

  No response. Devan poked at Val’s shoulder. He didn’t so much as flinch, his arm remaining half raised to his temple.

  Devan glanced about. “Crooked ruts on the Path,” he muttered. “What is this?” He moved to the window, glancing down. Several dozen Parents were below, mingling about a Quadrangle that showed signs of battle. The bodies of twenty or thirty men and women dressed in dirty clothes were strewn about, several dead Parents intermixed with them. Yet, the living Parents were still as the corpses.

  He reached into the folds of his robes, yanking out his chronometre, flipped it open. The sole-remaining hand was spinning out of control.

  “Oh no,” he murmured.

  A massive disturbance on the Path. Shutting his eyes, he reached out his senses to pinpoint the source, praying he wasn’t too late. That his decision to confront Val rather than first rescue Bladesorrow hadn’t cost him everything. Cost everyone everything.

  It only took a few heartbeats to locate the source. In this time. Nearby.

  He peregrinated, leaving Val’s frozen form behind.

  His eyes opened upon an ill-lit, cavernous room. The Temple nave. He looked about, identified a group of figures at the far end of the hall near the altar, and rushed towards them. As he neared, he immediately saw none of them were moving either.

  Time had stopped.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. One of the figures was moving.

  Ferrin was stalking around the other, immobile figures, face twisted in a stew of emotions. The skin around his neck was blistered, bloody. Some of his hair had been burned away, leaving oozing ulcers about his skull. His face was streaked with black soot, cheeks lined with either sweat or tears; perhaps both. He seemed to be straining, muscles in his shoulders and back quivering, as if carrying a great weight.

  Devan stepped closer. Off to one side was the Grand Master, restrained on his knees by two Parents, shadow collar about his neck. To the other side, the girl, Jenzara, was similarly held by a pair of Parents. Shinzar stood behind her, in mid thrust, his spear...

  Devan grimaced. The Priest had just impaled the girl. As he inspected further, he saw that time had not, in fact, stopped. It was just moving very slowly. Shinzar’s spear was still inching forward, droplets of blood splattered about it, bits of the girl’s sternum erupting in a spray before her.

  The lad finally noticed him.

  “Angel, what is this?” he asked through clenched jaw. “How is this happening? Is this your doing?”

  Devan considered him, probing outward with his elemental sense, though he already knew what he’d find. How he’d missed it he didn’t know. But there was no denying it.

  “You’re doing this lad. That weight you’re feeling? It’s the pressure that accompanies channeling all five elements at once.”

  “All five? No, that’s impossible.” Ferrin’s face was gaunt. Haunted.

  “Not entirely,” Devan responded. “I can do it.”

  “But you’re an...” Ferrin’s voice trailed off. His eyes widened. “That’s impossible,” he repeated.

  Devan shrugged. “That’s what I thought. But it seems the Path had other plans.”

  Ferrin squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain before speaking again.

  “You mean, I can manipulate time like you?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, la
d. You’re not an Aldur. Not yet. Right now you’re what’s called a Quintis. You can channel all five elements but you’re far yet from being Aldur. You might never get there, though I’ve never seen one other than an Aldur achieve this.” He motioned about the room. “But right now you must stop.”

  Ferrin’s eyes snapped back open.

  “What? And let Jenzara die? Absolutely not. You said yourself that you jump around time and place nearly at will.”

  Devan shook his head. “Peregrinate. That’s different. Traveling in time is a far stretch from this. From stopping it, as you’re doing now. It’s like damming up a raging river. You can stop it for a time, but eventually the pressure snaps the dam, with dire consequences for the surrounding landscape. Except here the surrounding landscape is the Path. Time itself. We can’t risk such damage. Not ever, and certainly not in the Path’s current state.”

  “Alright. Then we just swim upstream for a few minutes. Stop it that way.”

  Path’s sake. This was not the way one should be introduced to the finer points of peregrination.

  “We can’t do that either. For one, it’d require you to cross your own timeline. Like I told you back at the tower, a big no-no. Lesson Six, though I wouldn’t expect you to know that. Further, the Path’s already broken; we’re in a rogue strand as we speak. And the girl’s already been dealt a mortal blow. The course of events has been established. To go back and change it? That would create a rogue strand off a rogue strand that’s hanging from a broken Path. It just won’t work.”

  “Flaming earth, man! Speak with some emotion at least. I won’t leave her to die.”

  Devan sighed. Maybe the lad was right; he should display a little compassion. But once you got to a certain age, seen as much death as he had, you became somewhat numb to it all. And compassion wouldn’t make what the lad would inevitably have to do any easier.

  “Ferrin,” he murmured. “She’s already dead. You’re just holding on to a lost hope, and running the risk of taking time itself with you. It’s the exact trap Val fell into. You must stop.”

  “No,” he grated. A tear ran down his cheek, turning black with the filth and blood on his face. “What good is this power if I can’t protect the ones I love?”