Bladesorrow (The Agarsfar Saga Book 1)

by D. T. Kane

  “Val’s plan succeeded,” Devan continued. “That is, until I went back and stopped it. See, I discovered his treachery, part of it at least, what couldn’t have been more than mere hours after he’d done it. Of course, he’d planned to kill me before I could do anything about it, but that didn’t work out so well for him.” A sort of grim satisfaction permeated the Angel’s words. “Once I’d dealt with him, I knew I had to find the Grand Master; prevent Val’s murder. And I did, arriving in time to remove the heart before it killed him.”

  Devan turned pensive, looking off into the distance. “But Val hadn’t revealed to me all he’d done. I didn’t know he’d given the Grand Master over to the Seven. If I had known...” His voice trailed off, eyes continuing to search somewhere far away. Then he shook his head with vehemence. “No, it wouldn’t have mattered. If I’d known, I would have tried to save you anyway, Grand Master. I may have gone about it differently, but I still would have done it. Normally, if one who isn’t meant to die does, an Aldur can go back to the moment of death and avert it, resolving the rogue strand. The Path swallows the aberrant timeline, making it as if it never existed.

  “But with the Grand Master in the Seven’s grasp, my act of saving him didn’t heal the Path. The Seven are powerful enough to resist the Path’s self-corrections. So instead my actions caused a split, a break. The Grand Master had both died and lived. And worse yet, the version of him that had died continued to exist, infested by the Seven. The Grand Master was split in two. In a way, that seems to have been a good thing, as it’s left the Seven’s release incomplete. They’re still trapped, for the most part. But the paradox also threatens to break the Path. Will break it, unless it’s resolved.”

  “Split in two?” Ferrin asked, face still unbelieving.

  “Yes. The Grand Master we have here,” Devan motioned at Taul, “and his anti-self, what the Aldur call an Andstaed. The Seven have control of that half. And if we’ve any hope of saving the Path we must stop it.”

  Ferrin seemed to mull this over for a minute. “So why haven’t you just gone and killed it?”

  Devan shook his head. “The only way to resolve a split-being paradox is to bring the two halves back together so they annihilate. It’s not about killing—they must physically touch. Occupy the same time and place simultaneously. If you kill only one of the halves, then there’s no way for it to resolve. And an unresolved paradox of this magnitude would spell disaster.”

  Ferrin raised his eyebrows and looked to the Grand Master.

  “Yes, that’s what the Angel’s been after,” Taul said in response to the boy’s unasked question. “Why he’s been following me around since the Dales. Wants me to basically go kill myself.”

  “Your anti-self,” Devan corrected.

  Taul gave the Angel a cold glare and, to his surprise, the Angel actually flinched. Not much. Just a twitch of a muscle beneath his eye. But drawing any reaction from the insufferably self-confident man was something.

  “Will you finally agree to help?” Devan asked. “Save the Path and everyone on it?”

  Part of him wanted to just tell the Angel to send him back to Falume and leave him be. But after all he’d seen since leaving the clearing...

  “That depends. I’ve some questions. Questions that you will answer if you’ve any hope of compelling me to join whatever crusade it is you’ve planned for me.”

  Devan crossed his arms. Nellis shuffled his feet. The dwarf had never been comfortable with his brazen manner towards the Angel. Too bad. If he was going to do what Devan intended, he needed to see a real glimpse into the Angel. Needed to know what Devan was saying was indeed the right thing—the only thing—to do.

  “First, I’ll hear your side of Valdin’s allegation. That you killed his lover in cold blood.”

  Ferrin eyed the Angel like one might a man who’d just struck a young child. Devan massaged his eyeballs as if suppressing great annoyance, but then seemed to resolve himself to the need to respond fully.

  “She was my friend,” Devan sighed. “A lovely girl, really. And skilled. The most promising pupil I’ve ever had, in fact. She was a Quintis, like Ferrin here.”

  Nellis let out a gurgle of surprise at that revelation and took a step away from the boy. So much for keeping it quiet; the ebon was out of the North now.

  “I was training her to join the ranks of the Aldur. She’d so much ability.” He paused to clear his throat. “But one day, while off investigating a disturbance I thought had nothing to do with her, I made a terrible discovery. Much later in her life, she would kill one of the Agarian Constants. It would have meant a shattering of the Path, not unlike what we’re experiencing now. It could not go unaddressed.”

  Devan’s face twisted and he turned away from them for a moment. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve never spoken of this. Not in such detail, anyway.” He cleared his throat and turned back to them. “I ran the calculations. Conducted every sort of divination I knew how. Taught myself ones I didn’t. Consulted with my colleagues in the Conclave. But there was nothing to be done, and I was Virtuo Timi, the Conclave’s Master Horologist. The power of my position granted me the right to just annihilate the girl outright. Not just kill her, but wipe her entire existence from the Path. Forever. No one would have questioned me. But instead, I brought it to the full Conclave’s attention, put it to a vote. The entirety of my race considered the issue, and they all—save Val—came to the same conclusion. She had to be removed to preserve the Path.”

  The Angel’s face was a study in haunted regret, his breathing heavy as if he’d just endured a great exertion.

  “So you killed the girl for a crime she had yet to commit?” Ferrin demanded, not even a hint of empathy in his tone.

  Devan looked up to the sky, closing his eyes. “You cannot understand. None of you can. Your lives exist in only one direction of time, so it would seem like that to you. That I condemned her for something she hadn’t even done. But you must understand, for us, the Aldur, it was no different than if she had already done it. She would always do it. Had always done it. When I’m on the Path, I can shut my eyes and know what any individual will do at any point in their life, as could all my people.”

  Ferrin shook his head. “I don’t believe that. People can change. You yourself have said the Path is not definitively set, it can evolve over time.”

  “Don’t you think I thought of those possibilities, lad?” The look in the Angel’s eyes was a mix of fury and raw desolation. “I was prepared to spend decades, more, nudging the Path in all manner of directions if it meant saving her. I was faced with the prospect of not merely stealing from my friend a lifetime of happiness, but lifetimes upon lifetimes. Millennia of love and companionship. But I went through the models, spent years of my personal timeline running them. There was simply no way to avoid it.”

  Ferrin gave the Angel a glare that rivaled a smith’s furnace for intensity.

  “You have power over time itself, Angel. You should have tried harder. I won’t say I support Valdin’s tactics, but I can hardly blame the man for his rage. For losing all perspective.”

  Devan met the boy’s glare, but then surprised Taul once more by looking away.

  “Judge me if you will,” he said into the empty space over Ferrin’s shoulder, not meeting the boy’s accusing stare. “Decry the will of the Conclave if you must. But I did not kill her in cold blood. She was my student. And friend. If you think vengeance for what we did is warranted, well, I think even the most draconian of systems would agree the Aldur paid dearly for killing her. And the subsequent fate that’s befallen me since the others’ deaths has been far worse. I’d much rather have died with them than be the only remaining member of my race, doomed to hold all of time itself together alone.”

  “Feeling bad about it doesn’t change what you did,” Ferrin said, cold enough to make those standing near him shiver. “You can’t have valued her friendship very highly.”

  Devan turned away from the boy, as i
f he could no longer physically bear to look at him.

  “There. I’ve answered your question, Grand Master. Now, I can only ask mine once more. Will you help me?”

  Taul regarded the Angel, searching his face. Truly seeing him for perhaps the first time. It was easy to assume he cared for nothing when you looked upon him. His ragged clothes; infuriating arrogance. But Taul had been watching his eyes as he’d spoken about Valdin’s lost love. And the truths he’d seen in them were startling. Here was a being with the fate of many—light! Perhaps everyone—always upon his shoulders. Upon his mind. Every waking minute. It was a weight to which Taul could relate. And the decisions one had to make when faced with such responsibility. Often there were no good answers. The right answer was sometimes just the best choice of many terrible possibilities. Ferrin might never be able to understand why Devan had done what he did. All the boy could think of when he heard Valdin’s story was someone killing Jenzara, taking her from him. But Taul could see beyond the individual tragedy, to the larger considerations the Angel had needed to make. Was making right now.

  He still had other questions for the Angel, and he remained uncertain that he could ever fully trust him. Devan had set in motion the gears that had led to Raldon’s death. He’d sacrificed a great man to further his own aims. Though, if what Devan said was true, Raldon’s death would be wiped from the Path if his plan succeeded. And that’s exactly what the Angel would say if pressed. There was no point in pushing it further.

  “I’ll do as you ask.”

  Devan’s whole demeanor changed, like a man who had just been relieved of a crushing burden. And Taul supposed that was precisely what he’d just done—relieved him of an onus no one ought to bear alone.

  “Thank you, Grand Master.”

  He gave Devan a curt nod.

  “I don’t need your thanks, Angel.” He might understand Devan more now than he had, but the thought of being a piece in his game still didn’t sit well.

  “So what will ye do now?” Nellis asked.

  Taul glanced to each of the three in turn. Ferrin had sat down, scowling at no one and everything. They might not get along, but Taul felt for the boy, knowing the girl he loved was somewhere in the keep, dying. Nellis stood just off to one side of the boy, tugging at one of his mustaches. He’d been a good Keeper, one of the best, and an even better friend since Riverdale. And then there was Devan. The Angel drove him mad, but Taul would be a fool if he didn’t admit to himself how much help Devan had been over the years, ulterior motives or not. Taul had no wish for any of them to suffer the fates that likely lay down the path he was headed. But he’d made his decision, and whether they knew it or not yet, he was fairly certain he’d made it for the three of them as well. He locked eyes with the Angel.

  “Only thing we can do. The Andstaed can’t come to us. So we’ll have to go to it.”

  Devan nodded.

  “Te Ral Falar?” Nellis practically moaned.

  A chill shot down Taul’s spine as the dwarf named the place of his nightmares. His mind leapt to the haunting image of the thing with his own face that waited there. How horrible it was to hear all seven of them speak through it. Was he really going to face that in person? Willingly?

  He pushed such doubts from his mind as best he could. If what the Angel said was true, the fates of perhaps all mankind rested on his going there. The consequences of not going were even more terrifying than failing to go.

  Ferrin glowered at the dwarf.

  “Why would we go there? That place has been an abandoned ruin since before Agarsfar was founded.”

  “That’s where the Seven are keeping it. The Andstaed,” Devan replied.

  Ferrin looked ready to launch into a fresh interrogation of the Angel, but Taul cut him off before he could start.

  “You’ve been there, Angel. What sort of defenses can we expect?”

  Devan pondered. “Well, not as many shades after all the ones I killed at the waytower. But still more than even I would be comfortable handling with just a few Linears for aid. No offense.” He grinned, but Taul met his mirth with a hard stare. The Angel cleared his throat and went on. “And there’re some Parents, too. I saw maybe two dozen or so, but I’d guess there were some more I didn’t see. Perhaps forty all told.”

  Taul rubbed a hand over the stubble at his chin, thinking. It was time to take a page from the Angel’s tome and do some cold calculation.

  “So at least a full covenant, plus another coven, and at least twice as many shades.” Taul cast his eyes to Nellis. “We’re going to need an army of our own to combat that.”

  He’d expected some resistance from the dwarf and was surprised when Nellis didn’t hesitate at all.

  “Aye, Grand Master. The Second Symposium be wit’ ye. And House Glofar, too. What’s teh plan?”

  He felt a fount of gratitude for the dwarf’s loyalty well up within him. But now was not the time for sentiment. It was time to finally start acting like the Grand Master Keeper. He squatted down and made a few rough outlines in the silty dust that perpetually coated the ground (and just about everything else) in the North.

  “A frontal assault,” he said. “Simplest is usually best. And with shades you can’t really plan complex maneuvers anyway. Brute force before their time slipping can disrupt the lines too much is usually best.”

  “That sounds like a blood bath,” Ferrin said. “Why would anyone follow you into such a killing field?”

  The dwarf didn’t even blink. “Anyone? Don’t know ’bout anyone. But Grand Master Keeper Taul Bladesorrow is teh North’s champion. Ev’ry man and dwarf in this stronghold will follow ’im. To their deaths if that’s what he asks. The North owes ’im a debt that can’t be repaid.”

  Taul grasped the dwarf’s shoulder.

  “Well perhaps that’s true,” the boy said, turning to Taul with defiance written on his face. “But I don’t owe you anything. I’m not going anywhere until Jenzara’s well again.”

  “Enough of that,” Devan snapped. “The girl isn’t—”

  Taul cut off the Angel’s words with a look. Why was compassion such an effort for him? Surprisingly, the Angel actually responded to his glare. After a deep breath, Devan continued to address Ferrin.

  “Jenzara’s injury is tragic. But there’s nothing any of us can do for her except resolve the break in the Path.”

  The boy looked ready to attack the Angel and for a moment Taul feared he’d be foolish enough to do so, the rage in his eyes was so great.

  “There you go again, only thinking about your precious Path,” Ferrin said.

  Devan flailed his arms, the rings—weapons—upon his hands jangling with the motions.

  “Do none of you ever listen? If we heal the break, it resolves the rogue strand in which she died. And if we resolve the strand, it’s just as if she never died at all. She would live once more. It is literally the only chance she has.”

  Taul saw the angst in the boy lessen ever so slightly for the first time since they’d arrived.

  “Didn’t you say the break occurred when Valdin attacked Bladesorrow at the Dales?” Ferrin asked. “So everything that’s happened in the intervening fifteen years is some sort of alternate reality?”

  “Well, it’s my best guess at the moment that the break originated at the Dales,” Devan said. “But yes, that’s essentially right.”

  “So if we resolve the break in the Path, restore the proper timeline, does that mean we won’t remember anything that’s happened since the Dales? Like, nearly my entire life up to this point?”

  Taul considered that. Forgetting the last fifteen years—no, not just forgetting, wiping them out completely—actually didn’t sound like the worst thing that could happen to him at this point.

  Devan rubbed at his forehead. “Not exactly. You’ve all peregrinated now, which will have altered your metaphysical perception of the Path. You’ll retain some memories, like you might retain flashes of a vivid nightmare.”

  Ferrin con
tinued to glare at the Angel, as if he didn’t appreciate having his whole life compared to a nightmare. Finally, he looked away.

  “Fine. But I’m only doing it for her, Angel. And don’t think I didn’t hear what Valdin said, about you starting this whole mess by luring the Master at Elements into Valdin’s clutches. You’re as untrustworthy as Bladesorrow is careless. And if you think for a moment Jenzara will ever support you, you’d better think again. Raldon would still be alive if not for you. I can’t even stand to look at you anymore. I’m going to see her.” With that the boy left the courtyard and no one made to stop him.

  “Why’d ye insist he come?” Nellis asked once Ferrin was gone. “He doesn’t seem one te keep ’is cool in battle.”

  Taul sighed, still eyeing the spot where the boy had disappeared around a corner. When Devan only waved the dwarf’s question away, he answered for the Angel.

  “Because we’re going to need all the help we can get. I’ll never forget your willingness to help, Nellis. But how many can you truly muster on such short notice? Actually, that’s not even the right question. How many mounted men and dwarfs can you muster? We don’t have time to walk to Ral Falar, if such were even possible. If the Seven don’t know already that I’m alive, they soon will, and they won’t remain dormant. Those shades and Parents will be at Glofar’s doorstep before long if we don’t act now. And against the numbers they have there, cavalry and surprise will be our only advantages”

  Nellis scrunched up his face in thought, eyes practically disappearing amongst all his facial hair. “Good fightin’ men wouldn’t be a problem. I’ve plenty o’ those. But the mounts? That’s ’nother story. Panthers don’t get by well on corn and beans. No ’fense te yer crops, o’ course. We’ve twenty-five, maybe thirty fit for battle.”