by D. T. Kane
Taul inwardly flinched, but kept his face passive. Sometimes all leadership required was the truth created by a feigned expression. A leader could be scared as a child in the dark on the inside so long as he fostered confidence in those around him. Devan frowned but for once kept his mouth closed.
“That will be more than enough, my friend.”
Nellis nodded, then glowered in the direction Ferrin had gone once more.
“I still don’t know ’bout that one.”
“If he can be taught to reign in his powers he’ll be worth ten men in a fight. He brought down a section of the Temple’s roof with a hex earlier.”
Nellis’s eyes widened. “He did that? To stone reinforced by Ral ’imself?” His amazement quickly returned to a frown. “Such power is as likely te kill us as our en’mies if the wielder can’t control it.” The dwarf paused, scratching at his chin, then added, “But I trust yer judgment, Grand Master.”
Taul wished he could say the same. But if he was going to trust the Angel, why not buy into his beliefs? The Path wouldn’t have brought Ferrin all this way if he didn’t still have a part yet to play. Leaving him behind where he’d be of no use to anyone didn’t make sense.
“How soon can you be ready, Nellis?” Taul asked. It felt good to be in control of something again. Out in front of the mystery that had plagued him for so long.
“A handful o’ days, at most. I’ll need te brief the troops, see te supplies. The usual. But Ral Falar isn’t far. A few days as the panther rides.”
“Very well. Go make ready.”
“Aye, though it will warm the men’s hearts te see ye preparing as well.”
“I’ll be along presently, High Emissary.”
Nellis harrumphed at his use of the old title, but said nothing more as he began to trundle away. After he’d gone a few steps, he paused and turned, drawing a knife from his belt and holding it out before him, broad side facing him. The old Keepers’ salute. Then he turned once more and was gone. When he was out of sight the Angel spoke.
“You know thirty isn’t enough.”
Taul frowned at him. “Do I? Thirty of the finest elementalists mounted on shadow panthers? I think they’ll be able to do more than their fair share of damage. And if you can shove some sense and control into the boy, then we might actually have a chance.”
“Me?” The Angel said, incredulous.
“Yes, you. I don’t care what you are or what you’ve been through. If we’re to succeed and save the Path we’ll need complete contribution from everyone. That includes you. And who better to train a Quintis than the only remaining Aldur?”
Devan straightened for a moment, then shook his head and scowled. “Your flattery won’t work on me, Grand Master. Besides, I was going to work with him anyway. Don’t you think for a minute it’s because I’m taking orders from you now.”
“Just get it done, Angel.”
“Fine. While you prepare. Then I’ll peregrinate ahead to scout out Ral Falar before the rest of you arrive.”
“No, you won’t. The presence of an Angel in our ranks will hearten the men more than anything I can say or do. You’ll ride.”
“I hate cats,” Devan muttered.
“Angel.”
“Fine. Fine. Yes, I’ll ride with you.”
A smile played at the edge of Devan’s mouth for a moment, but quickly dissipated. They stood there for a time, lost in their own thoughts.
“Angel,” Taul said when the silence had become unbearable. “What do I do once we get there? Once I’m face to face with...”
Devan nodded, as if he understood the words left unspoken. “All you must do is touch the Andstaed. Once the two of you occupy the same space at the same instant the paradox will resolve. You’ll annihilate each other.”
“And everything will go back to how it was? No war? A successful peace at Riverdale? My... Those who were killed alive?”
The Angel remained silent for a long while. Finally, he said, “Much damage has been done to the Path. I’m not sure what will happen. But I do know that if you don’t do this, all is lost.”
Taul raked fingers through his hair, releasing a deep breath. “What are the chances of all this working?”
Devan shrugged, a small smile returning to his lips. “It won’t be a stroll through Falume, that’s for certain. But we’ve got the greatest swordsmen this side of After Agar on our side, not to mention a potential Aldur in training. And the dwarf’s not half bad either.” His smile widened. “And me, of course. I’d say our chances are better than most others faced with such dire odds.”
Taul reflected that Devan’s response hadn’t actually answered his question. But he decided he probably didn’t want the truth anyway. They would do what they could, because the alternative was unconscionable.
He strode out of the courtyard without another word to the Angel.
54
Valdin
Men plan and plan in preparation for adversity. Then conflict strikes, and the plan falls to the floor in shreds. This is a truth not only of war, but of life. The only plan worth studying is how to adapt, for the only certainty is uncertainty.
-Excerpt from Agar’s Authorities
HE LIMPED DOWN THE silent avenue, trying to ignore the spire that towered before him. For years he’d sworn to never return here. At least, not until he’d regained his powers. But Devan’s reappearance had changed everything. The fool was going to try and resolve the Bladesorrow paradox. He could not let Devan succeed. But as their recent encounter had shown, it wasn’t a given that he could defeat Devan on his own. It stung his pride, but too much was at stake to allow ego to cloud his judgment.
Desperately, Valdin’s mind grasped for anything to distract him from the task he walked towards. Even the pain of his injuries was pleasant compared to that. Shattered leg, half-crushed face. He was lucky, really. His mistake of ignoring the boy had nearly cost him his life. It certainly would have if Ferrin had possessed any training at all. Devan hadn’t been lying, it seemed, about not having taken the boy on as his student. One learning from Devan would never have channeled a hex as sloppy as the boy’s had been. And yet, there’d been such power in it. Even the glancing blow had been an agony, though the majority of his injuries had come from falling debris in the hex’s aftermath.
Valdin now fully understood Stephan’s warning. Why he’d used his final breaths to alert him of the need to stop the boy at all costs. A Quintis that strong in the shadow? If he ever succame to the Seven’s Call, allowing them into his body... The thought was nearly unconscionable. Aldur were carefully trained from the earliest of ages to control their shadow powers. But this Ferrin had raw, uncontrolled, and untrained darkness within him. Devan was a fool if he permitted him to live, though he almost certainly would. He’d always had a soft spot for Linears.
The avenue ended, opening onto the city’s expansive hub. At its center stood the tower. He could no longer ignore it.
The spire of Ral Falar.
Before the Rending, when Ral Falar had still existed as something more than a forgotten ruin, the city had been laid out like a wagon wheel. Fitting, since it had been a major seat for worshippers of the Aldur, back when such had been prominent. The tower was at its center, with various wedge-shaped sectors radiating outward from it.
Now, most buildings in the city were simply crumbling foundations. A pallor hung over the entirety of the place, like a fog that wouldn’t lift. The sight of it left a foul film in the mouth, a taste of stale chalk and things dead too long. And sound didn’t seem to carry quite right. Despite the vast, empty streets, footsteps didn’t echo. He constantly caught himself scratching at his ears as if there was something wrong with his hearing.
But despite the gloom of it all, the central tower remained intact. The gray stone monolith jutted into the sky like a young king ruling over an army of corpses. No different from last time, that awful day when Valdin had come here just after Devan had murdered his love. Once meant to h
ouse various offices of government administration, Valdin knew what he’d find within now—a dark maze of stairwells and hallways that led nowhere. Merely looking upon the spire tore at the mind; it at once seemed impossibly tall and yet as natural as a tree in a forest. A result of Falconwing’s Rending, no doubt.
He pushed down a wave of terrified nausea and strode on. His presence here was self-inflicted. He’d known exactly what was likely to happen when he’d set his plan in motion after the disaster that had been Bladesorrow’s testimony. Part of him had hoped he’d succeed in killing the man outright, that perhaps Shinzar and his fanaticism would have ended Bladesorrow while Devan had been distracted.
But deep down Valdin had known Devan was too clever to allow something like that to happen. Devan might not possess anywhere near the raw elemental power that Valdin held, but his abilities with peregrination were unmatched. So, while Devan was unlikely to completely defeat him, he was plenty capable of running away, and taking others with him. And that was exactly what he’d done.
Ordinarily, Valdin would have had no way of knowing where Devan had gone. But there was only one place to which Devan could possibly have taken Bladesorrow. The North, with the ultimate destination being Ral Falar and a meeting with what dwelled at the top of its central spire.
It’d been so long since he’d been in the proximity of peregrination that he’d worried he wouldn’t be able to sense it. But even buried under the rubble of that boy’s hex, Devan’s grasp on all five elements has been obvious as a scream on a quiet night. Valdin could no longer peregrinate himself, of course, after losing his shadow power. But latching on to another Aldur’s peregrination was a simple enough thing if one knew what to look for; it hardly required channeling at all. One clueless about horses can still ride behind an equestrian so long as he has the strength to hoist himself into the saddle. This was no different. Aldur working in groups had often done so. The best peregrinator would initiate, the others simply latch on, conserve their energy. In fact, he’d done it with Devan on more than one occasion.
Once he’d connected with Devan’s peregrination, it’d been simple to both reckon where Devan was headed and to alter his own course slightly, directing himself here to Ral Falar. Devan had taken Bladesorrow and the others somewhere south of Mount Trimale. The Stronghold, in all likelihood. There, he’d be rallying what forces he could for an attack on Ral Falar. Now that Devan had Bladesorrow in his clutches, he’d have but a singular purpose: Get the man to Ral Falar at any cost, use him to annihilate the Andstaed.
The icy fingers of conviction grasped at him. He couldn’t let that happen. Yet latching onto Devan’s peregrination had been draining. And that had cost him, robbing him of the fortitude needed to fully heal himself. The worst of it he’d managed, but the limp remained. And his face. He hadn’t looked at it, but he could feel the left side still collapsed upon itself. His eye bulged and wandered off at odd angles when he wasn’t consciously focusing it. He couldn’t risk standing against Devan alone in his current state.
A pair of Parents stood guard at the tower’s entrance. They cast him quizzical glances as he approached, then quickly looked away when their eyes landed upon his deformity. He dismissed them with a wave of his hand and they rushed from his presence. There were perhaps fifty of them here all told. Add their number to the shades gathered around the ruins’ outskirts, and it was a formidable force for Devan to overcome. Many of the men Devan would bring with him would die. But that battle would hardly matter. It was the coming conflict at the tower’s peak that would determine the Path’s fate.
And his love’s.
He began to climb, trying to ignore when, after only a few steps, the entrance and bottom floor vanished from view, replaced by inky darkness. His leg ached with every step of his ascent and he once more cursed his carelessness at having ignored the boy. Steps creaked as he climbed, the sounds quickly lost to the darkness all about him, as if some unseen thing in the murk were consuming them like vultures upon carrion. Dust and grime from the railings stuck to his sweaty palms; motes disturbed by his passing were his only companions. Some stairwells had no railing at all, inviting him to plunge into the turbid depths of the tower. When available, he kept as close to the walls as he could. It didn’t help that his hands were shaking. He’d been communicating with the Seven for over fifteen years now, through various shadow attuneds who’d succumb to their Call, mostly the young sniffers. But this would be the first time he’d spoken to them in person since that original visit here. And his first time in the physical presence of the Andstaed.
Stop it. This brooding anxiety would get him nowhere. The Seven were terrible, there was no doubting it. But they’d been Aldur just like him. And he’d been the strongest of the Conclave’s channelers. If Stephan had been able to stand against them, so could he. Besides, he didn’t intend to do battle with them now. Until Bladesorrow was dead he still needed them. An alliance of necessity, as much as the thought of it curdled his insides.
Just as the first time he’d come here, the ascent ended abruptly. Climbing through darkness one moment, the next bathed in light on a landing before the massive double doors. The feline-shaped door handles gleamed in a soft glow from the stained-glass windows that encircled the space. He was breathing hard, a combination of his aged muscles and injuries taking a toll on his now-Linear body. Taking a moment to muster both his stamina and will to go on, his gaze fell to the windows. He immediately wished it hadn’t. One showed a dark-haired man on his knees, clutching at the multi-colored robes of a stern-faced figure. Another showed the same two men, the one with dark hair cradling the limp body of the man in colorful robes, each covered in blood. A third showed the same dark-haired man as in the first two, screaming in agony as dark shadows flew from him into a chronometre.
Dread returned to the pit of his stomach. This place ought to have been razed long ago. Even a lifetime locked away in Noktus Tor would be better than an hour here. And yet, it provided the last remaining way forward. It was either enter those doors or leap from this landing into the ceaseless abyss. And he couldn’t—wouldn’t—abandon his love’s last hope like that. So he forced his legs forward, up to the doors. He threw them open, willing himself forward without a backward glance.
The doors moaned in protest as they swung open. Undisturbed darkness flooded his eyes, made his nostrils twitch. The rows of columns were as they had been, the red carpet that ran down their center glimmering like dried blood in the weak light of shadow torches.
His forward momentum stalled as he waited for his eyes to adjust. As he took a few tentative steps forward, the mighty doors swept shut behind him, the violence of their motion propelling him onward several more paces and causing him to cry out in a mix of surprise and agony from a stabbing pain in his leg.
“Valdin,” rasped a voice from deep within the room. Not the one he dreaded most, though each was terrible in its own way. “So nice of you to finally join us. Do come forward.”
He suppressed an urge to retreat, to check whether the doors behind him were locked. Instead, he pulled his shoulders back, inhaled, and walked into the darkness, towards the voice.
The trip down the carpet seemed an eternity. A silent eternity, as the Seven spoke no more as he approached. Again, he felt compelled to check whether his ears were functioning. He coughed and the sound was like an explosion, shattering the silence and startling him so badly he stumbled and nearly fell. The ache in his leg would have been intolerable if not for the distraction of his heart trying to hammer its way from his chest.
Finally, the dais came into view. There sat the same, awful stone seat, worked in the likeness of a Terror. But this time it was occupied. The Andstaed, the other half of the Bladesorrow paradox, the vessel serving as the Seven’s host. It was a near identical twin of Bladesorrow as he’d been that day at Riverdale. It wore the same gilt armor, accented with blue, the lion sigil of the Symposium emblazoned over the chest. Massive pauldrons worked into the shape of roari
ng cats framed its shoulders. And a copy of Friend Slayer hung at its hip. Or perhaps it was the sword itself. Who could truly say where reality ended and paradox began?
But despite its similarities, the Andstaed was also entirely distinct from Bladesorrow—shrouded in a black mist that swirled slowly around its form, the armor and skin several shades too dark. Its eyes, however, were the most startling. Unlike the rest of it, they were vibrant, probing blue. Bladesorrow’s true eyes.
Valdin tried to look away, past the dais, towards the rift in time that Stephan had created to originally banish the Seven. Almost immediately his vision blurred, mind spinning, as if trying to see through a waterfall while someone drove icicles into his temples. His eyes were immediately drawn back to the thing seated upon the dais.
“You have made a mess of this whole plan, Valdin.” This voice was different from the one that had beckoned him. The alto of an angry woman.
He drew himself up. Not only were they mad, they were utterly ungrateful. They’d still be completely trapped in the Elsewhere if he hadn’t first bargained for their freedom.
“I’ve done no such thing,” he said, not so much as a quiver in his voice. “Indeed, at this very moment Bladesorrow is on his way here, marching straight into your clutches. Soon, you will—”
“SILENCE.” The booming voice’s force caused the stone columns to tremble, striking Valdin like a hammer. Air whooshed from his lungs as he dropped to his knees.
“We see,” hissed the voice of the girl who wasn’t a girl, the one who’d wanted to carve him with her knife. “Don’t think you can lie to us. We know you had the Angel in your grasp and failed to kill him. Your loyalty to the Conclave remains.”
“No,” Valdin gasped, trying to regain his breath. He began to rise, was nearly upright, when pain like he’d never felt before shot through his mind, drawing a scream from his lips and sending his body crumpling back to the blood-red carpet.
