“It is fruitless, this pursuit.” Rafael seated himself beside Ean while Darshan was sorting through his planets.
The prince felt a whisper of velvet wings brush across his neck. The Warlock met Ean’s gaze with that ruby glowing mesmerizingly in the center of his brow. He really was strikingly impressive.
“You cannot describe us in human terms, Ean. This is where mortals generally fail their gods. They cannot help but anthropomorphize them, for they’re conceiving of divine attributes using mortal minds.”
Ean looked at him in bewilderment. “How else would they do it but with mortal minds?”
“Well, admittedly, this is a legitimate problem.” Rafael spread his arms along the back of the obsidian bench. “Your language lacks the appropriate descriptives for godhood, and your ideas are shaped by your language.” He waved airily as he explained, “Gods have no gender. They do not seek for their creations to worship them. You’ve seen revenants. Can you imagine desiring those creatures’ worship? The very idea of it degrades the god.”
Ean felt a whisper of riffling wings as Rafael gave a faint shudder.
“But humans seek to be worshipped.” The Warlock rolled a golden finger around at Ean to emphasize his point. “Humans need to feel powerful in order to validate their existence. Humans think in binary terms.” He looked over at Darshan, who was crouched down, sorting through his planets and frowning. “Even that one has no gender, and he is hardly a god.”
“I am right here, Rafael,” Darshan rumbled.
“So tetchy.” Rafael eyed him circumspectly. “It’s a marvel you haven’t incinerated Alorin with a chance sneeze, Darshanvenkhátraman.”
Ean shook his head, wondering at Darshan’s equanimity in the face of Rafael’s taunts.
Clearly catching Ean’s thought, Darshan straightened to his full height and gazed imperturbably upon them. “This is one of Rafael’s games, Ean: taunting me, ridiculing me. It is his way of chastising me for my transgressions against Pelas.”
“Many for many.” Rafael’s faint smile hinted of fangs.
“He doesn’t care that such business lies between my brother and myself—”
“I care more for Pelas than you do.”
“—and makes preposterous claims in the hopes of rousing my ire, that he may have a reason to smite me—”
“I have no shortage of reasons.”
“—without incurring Pelas’s wrath in return.” Darshan’s dark eyes assessed Rafael like a king cobra might observe an uppity mongoose. “Because Rafael also knows that my brother cares for me more than he cares for him.”
“A specious assertion. You do not know which of us Pelas would choose.”
“It seems to me that Pelas has already chosen,” Ean said quietly. He lifted his gaze to the two immortals, who had both suddenly fixed their eyes upon him. “I mean...he chose Tanis, didn’t he?”
“Ah, that.” Rafael waved a dismissive hand, as if Pelas binding himself to Tanis for all eternity had no relevance to their debate. He waggled a finger at Ean again. “But you’ve sought us out for some reason, Ean, other than a discourse on the nature of immortals.”
“I do have questions for you, actually. About Baelfeir.”
Rafael considered this while his molting raven hair shed golden sparks into the silver mist of his wings. Then he rose from the bench and summoned a goblet into each hand. He extended one of the goblets to the prince. “Let’s stroll, shall we?”
Ean accepted the goblet of silver-pale...
Liquid hardly described it. He sipped its contents warily. The fluid tasted of licorice and lemon and felt like cool, liquid light on his tongue. He lifted eyes to Rafael. “Dare I ask what I’m drinking?”
Rafael clinked his goblet against Ean’s. “The mystery is half the fun.” He headed off through a dark glass archway.
Ean glanced at Darshan, who was busy replacing some of his planets in the amphora and effacing others, then followed after Rafael.
The archway led to a balcony overlooking Rafael’s red-gold-green-violet nebula. It was massive on a planetary scale—on a galactic scale; so massive that Ean couldn’t begin to comprehend the distances it encompassed.
“For as long as I’ve known him, Baelfeir has been...unique,” Rafael told Ean as they strolled the terrace. “He alone among us could achieve solidity in your worlds. Even I could not manifest to the same degree of form. I’ve never been able to work out how he accomplished it. It cannot be merely a product of more harvesters...” and here he exhaled, his eyes narrowing with thought. “Baelfeir’s games in your world were darker than most, but I’ve long maintained that those games had a purpose.”
“What purpose?”
Rafael stared into his drink. “I cannot decide.”
Ean studied him quietly. “Rafael, do you think Shail has promised to give Baelfeir access to the Realms of Light?”
“Unquestionably.” Rafael waved with his goblet. “And likely has already done so.”
Ean froze. “Why do you say that?”
Rafael angled him a voluminous look. “The Warlocks of Wylde have abandoned that universe, Ean. Where do you suppose they’ve gone?”
Ean stared at him while Rafael continued strolling towards a railing. “But Baelfeir will not obediently come and go with Shailabanáchtran as his keeper. Mark my words.”
Ean was trying to wrap his head around what it would mean to add the component of Warlocks into the game. Apprehension drew a tight string through his core. “Do you think Baelfeir will return to Alorin?”
“I expect so. It was always his preferred world.” Rafael stopped at a balustrade overlooking a fountain spewing what appeared to be melted diamonds, and beyond this, an immense lake of condensed starlight.
“I don’t understand Baelfeir’s interest in your world.” He cast a bemused look over his shoulder. “I cannot conceive of what could be so unique about Alorin that it has drawn Baelfeir and four Malorin’athgul into its aether.”
Ean couldn’t understand it either. “Do you think there’s some different sort of power there?”
Rafael snorted. “This cannot be about power as you conceive of it. We are not primates beating our chests for territory. You must school yourself not to paint any of us with mortal trappings.”
Ean shook his head. “I’ll try. What’s your theory, then?”
Rafael turned to lean back against the railing. His wings flowed lengthily behind him, misting across the diamond waters of the fountain. “Baelfeir formed some sort of pact with Shailabanáchtran. It makes no sense to me, this alliance. Their purposes cannot be aligned.”
“It would seem—”
“Yes, yes. It would seem that they both thrive on chaos and that this would unify them.” Rafael gave an idle wave with his goblet. “But spreading chaos is a dalliance to Baelfeir, like Pelas with his painting and sculpting. These are avocations, not purposes. I tell you, Baelfeir and Shail’s motives are not aligned, so what is it that Baelfeir actually seeks to gain from their arrangement? This is the question you should be asking, Ean—assuming, of course, that you hope to spare your world from their collective machinations.”
Ean had no idea where to begin seeking answers to that question, but he knew unequivocally that if he was going up against Shail and Baelfeir, he would need powerful allies.
An idea occurred to him then, in the way of all of his outrageously dangerous and foolhardy undertakings: a snap of inspiration that promised portentous consequences.
Raine’s truth, to think of allying with a Warlock...it felt like taking a walk with a lion, just hoping it wasn’t hungry. At the same time, the idea felt...right. Something eased inside him when he accepted it.
Ean refocused to find Rafael gazing at him wearing a cryptic smile, as if the Warlock knew the shape of his thoughts better than Ean did.
The prince took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you’d like to help with that?”
Rafael studied him for a moment more, his dark eyes sparkl
ing with possibility. His smile turned sinuous. “What did you have in mind?”
Five
“He who dies with the most gold is still dead.”
–The Nodefinder Felix di Sarcova della Buonara
Viernan hal’Jaitar spun in a flurry of black silk to pace in the opposite direction while his thoughts trailed an acid wake on the currents of the fourth. Beyond the tall windows that formed the backdrop for his pacing, the sun was setting flame to the placid waters of the estuary surrounding the fortress of Ivarnen in Saldaria.
The island had once been a base for the infamous Quorum of the Sixth Truth, those wielders of elae’s fifth strand who had dominated mankind for eons. In the earliest times, they’d battled the Warlocks of Shadow, but later they allied with them in conquest over the na’turna masses.
Somewhere deep within the caverns of the mountainous isle, the Quorum had supposedly performed mor’alir rituals rumored to have brought about the cataclysm that ended the Cyrene Empire twenty-five-hundred years ago. Whatever the truth, the flooded passages that riddled Ivarnen’s core still reeked of magic, even after millennia of dormancy.
It was a fitting sort of place for Dore Madden to make his home.
And very far away from the battle at Raku Oasis, which Viernan had so recently fled with Radov abin Hadorin and the wielder Torqin in tow.
The latter stood now against the far wall, draped in a sullen malcontent and reeking of the combined odors of desert, horse and sweat. His black robes bore the stains of four days of sleepless flight, and dark circles made violet shadows under his eyes.
In contrast, save for a few wrinkles from the long ride, M’Nador’s Ruling Prince maintained his stately appearance—that is, if snoring, slouched in an armchair with an empty glass clutched to his chest might be considered stately.
Curses dominated Viernan’s thoughts.
Angharad, Goddess of Fortune, had surely set her will against him. The towers of his domain were crumbling—and all because of those damned val Lorians!
His daughter was lost, and more importantly, her skills. His prison at Darroyhan had been deserted, with no trace of the mutinous Captain Fazil or his men. Gydryn val Lorian had ordered his army to desert their stations, requiring Viernan to deal with the devils of Dore Madden and the Prophet Bethamin to subsidize the loss of Dannym’s soldiers from the ranks. Trell val Lorian had found his way back onto the field and was endangering Viernan’s projects at Khor Taran, and now this disastrous undertaking at Raku...
Viernan knew—knew in his bones!—that every calamity which had befallen him stemmed from one undeniable truth:
Trell val Lorian had cursed him.
‘...If it was Cephrael returned me to your doorstep, Viernan, you can be certain He had his reasons...’
Trell’s inauspicious words of parting so many moons ago haunted Viernan’s every breath, his every thought. The star-crossed prince had summoned Cephrael’s ill eye to Viernan’s undertakings on that fateful day when he’d made the mistake of sparing the prince’s life, and nothing had been the same since.
Viernan had amended his list of people most hated to include Trell val Lorian, placing his name alongside Thrace Weyland and zanthyrs of either gender.
And what of Dore Madden? Isn’t he at the very top of your list?
Viernan growled a curse and spun to stalk back in the other direction.
Across the room, the wielder Torqin seemed to shrivel deeper into the folds of his robes with every step Viernan took towards him. And well he should! If Viernan spared his life, it would only be so he might entertain himself with Torqin’s screaming.
That a ringed wielder could make such a colossal blunder vexed Viernan intolerably. He was angry enough to consider giving the man to Dore...save that then Dore would have a puppet wielder who could work the fifth.
Nonetheless, Viernan would have to find some punishment commensurate with Torqin’s misdeed. The Ruling Prince’s assured victory at Raku had become a debacle due to the man’s singular ineptitude.
“One rule!” Viernan shot a mordant glare at the wielder. “I gave you one rule that couldn’t be broken!”
One caution, delivered to Viernan by the zanthyr Leyd, along with the matrix of patterns that would banish the Sundragons: ‘the six drachwyr must all be together when the patterns are worked.’
Well...Viernan had only counted five beasts in the air when Torqin and the other Shamshir’im wielders under his command had launched Leyd’s matrix against the Sundragons.
Viernan continued glaring at Torqin as he paced. “How is it you can learn to wield elae’s fifth strand without also learning to count to six?”
Torqin’s expression grew pinched, as if all of the muscles of his gaunt face were pulling inward towards his nose. “Consul, we didn’t think—”
Viernan silenced him with a hiss. He’d heard the wielder’s excuses and found them lacking in servility, despite being logically sound.
Footsteps at the other end of the gallery dragged Viernan’s attention to the archway. He spun again to find the cadaverous form of Dore Madden approaching, followed closely by two men wearing tight silk shrouds around their heads. Viernan only recognized them as Marquiin by the stink of the Prophet’s foul power wafting off them.
“How dare you make me wait so long upon your pleasure, Dore Madden. Do you know what a labyrinth of nodes I had to take to get to this god-forsaken island?”
“Events progress, Viernan.” Dore regarded him with eyes like dark pools beneath the bony protrusion of his forehead. Verily, the skin was drawn so tightly across Dore’s bones that Viernan wondered if the man might’ve actually died years ago and was animated solely by the inhuman light always burning in his eyes. “In the Prophet’s absence, I’m needed more than ever in Tambarré.”
Viernan couldn’t imagine Dore being needed anywhere...save perhaps by the demons of hell, for feeding upon.
Instead of his usual robes, Dore was wearing clothes cut in the Agasi style, but his thigh-length coat shone a garish shade of chartreuse that made his pale flesh appear grey, and his high boots were too big for his calves. To heighten the macabre effect, Dore had brushed his white hair back from his forehead, giving him the look of a corpse pinned upright—perhaps for scaring away nosy youths...or crows out of the corn.
“Plague has come to Tambarré, as you may have heard, Viernan.” Dore sounded appallingly pleased by this news. “It ravages the camp of M’Nador’s dispossessed. The city-dwellers have closed their doors to them. The Prophet’s disciples are caring for your prince’s people as best they can, but it is a thankless task, as you might imagine.”
The terrible fate of the masses who had once been Viernan’s countrymen flickered past his notice as a fireside spark that flared briefly and extinguished, earning barely a moment’s attention. His gaze was fixed instead on the Marquiin.
Viernan demanded of Dore, “What are they doing here?”
“The Marquiin are assisting me in the Prophet’s absence.”
“Assisting you in what?” To Viernan’s knowledge, Dore’s sole occupation was the capture and torment of worthier men.
“The Prophet abandoned them, left them purposeless.” Dore looked the Marquiin over with that hungry gaze he saved for special torments. “I have given them new vision.”
Viernan wasn’t touching that subject with a mile-long pole. He started pacing again. “Where is this damnable creature whose pattern has brought such desolation to my prince’s plans?”
“Leyd will join us soon enough.” Dore looked him over. The tip of a bright tongue flickered at his lips.
If Trell val Lorian was the proverbial thorn in Viernan’s side, Dore Madden was the bed of spikes to which Viernan had been lashed. And by Jai’Gar’s holy name, Viernan intended to free himself if it was the last thing he did!
“This man is hostile towards you, Advisor,” murmured one of the Marquiin in an accent reminiscent of Avatar. “His thoughts churn the currents.”
&n
bsp; Viernan turned a black and infinitely superior gaze upon the Marquiin. “I will not be patronized by your Prophet’s mongrel pets, Dore Madden. Remove them from my sight, lest I service Adept-kind by eradicating their repugnant presence from the aether.”
The Marquiin inflated. “An old man should learn his place—”
“Go be mindful in the other room,” Dore snapped at him.
The Marquiin exited with a growl, followed by his silent partner.
Dore scuffed his too-big boots towards a sideboard and its collection of spirits borne in crystal decanters. Viernan watched him striding across the room, holding his bony shoulders straight and his corpse-like head high, his demeanor far from that of the rabid beast he usually resembled...and felt an uncommon alarm trilling through his bones.
He hadn’t seen the wielder so composed since the days when the man had been orchestrating the coup against the High Mage of the Citadel. Dore had enjoyed a certain prominence then, as now, Viernan supposed, in the mysterious absence of his Prophet. But why was he suddenly so self-possessed?
Dore Madden wielding any kind of power boded well for no one, but Dore Madden frolicking at the top of the food chain with no other predator to rout him? In this, Viernan fronted disturbing visions.
Dore put a drink into Viernan’s hand. His lips parted in the unsettling rictus that passed for his smile. “To old friends, eh, Viernan?” He clinked his glass against Viernan’s and drank.
Viernan stared at him.
Dore lowered his glass and looked Viernan over. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Viernan misliked greatly the dark light of certitude burning in Dore’s gaze. He set down his drink untouched and turned to pace in the other direction.
By Huhktu’s blighted bones, he was actually starting to fear what ill things Dore might’ve learned in his lengthy study of the mor’alir and macabre...as if the wielder could have found a way to bind him to his will through a chicanery of adept questioning. Rootless, groundless fears...one hoped.
But with the walls of his own fortress crumbling along with Radov’s hold on M’Nador’s throne—verily, with Cephrael’s ill eye fastened alertly upon his activities and Balance’s tide clearly waxing in the other direction—Viernan couldn’t afford to wager against Angharad.
The Sixth Strand Page 11
