The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  “Sister-of-my-heart.” He planted another kiss on her forehead. “Nice to see you up and about.”

  “And by that you mean exactly the opposite.” She shook her head at him. “Ean just told me Baelfeir has returned to Alorin.”

  “And finally.” Dagmar aimed a telling look at Björn and went to get more wine. Tanis thought the Vestal and Lord Fynnlar would get along famously.

  Pelas said to Björn meanwhile, “My brother and Baelfeir have apparently already exchanged words—or threats, as it were. Out of pique, my brother alerted the Empress of Agasan to Baelfeir’s presence. It’s safe to assume Shail expects Baelfeir to interfere with his plans.”

  Dagmar returned with a full goblet and asked Björn, “Think the Empress will slow him down?”

  Björn gave a wry smile. “Not in the least.”

  Ean tapped a knuckle on the table while his grey-eyed gaze moved speculatively across the rest of them. “The Warlock Rafael believes Shail and Baelfeir’s motives cannot be aligned.”

  “That’s a certain text,” Dagmar muttered.

  Björn arched brows resignedly. “It is safe to assume that whatever Baelfeir’s motives for returning to the realm, he will be opposed to this endeavor.”

  “May I ask why you think so?” Ean asked. “Opening the welds to Shadow would give Baelfeir unlimited access to the Realms of Light. Why would he oppose that?”

  Björn and Dagmar exchanged a look, whereupon the Second Vestal said, “We have some theories,” while Björn met Ean’s gaze in a way that said they would talk in depth about this and many other matters very soon.

  “Forgive my interruption, my lord.” Gadovan looked around the assembled group. “But who is the fourth Nodefinder that will be working with us to dredge the new ley lines?”

  “Tanis, of course.” Dagmar extended his goblet towards the lad.

  All three Eltanese looked hard at Tanis. Gadovan’s brow furrowed slightly. “But...aren’t you a truthreader?”

  “Tanis is an Adept of four strands,” his mother said.

  Whereupon the Eltanese’s eyes opened very wide indeed. Jude blurted in astonishment, “Innately?”

  “Like you, my lady.” Gadovan nodded graciously to her while understanding colored his gaze. Then, to Tanis, he added, “You must be very talented, lad.”

  “He is his mother’s son,” Dagmar murmured, eyeing Isabel cryptically.

  She arched a brow at him.

  “What’s our timeframe on this?” Pelas wanted to know.

  Björn looked soberly to him. “We should’ve begun a month ago, but all of the Players were not yet in place.”

  From the way they held each other’s gazes after this, Tanis could tell Pelas was tracking with his uncle’s thoughts far in advance of their spoken words. “I see.” His bond-brother’s gaze tightened. “We have until Rinokh breaks through. Because once that happens...”

  “T’khendar implodes,” Dagmar muttered at the same time that Isabel said, “Rinokh gains access to the Realms of Light.”

  “And it’s all chaos from there on down.” Pelas exhaled a slow breath. Then he cursed.

  Well, that’s heartening, Mathias thought derisively, when even the immortal thinks it’s a fool’s errand in hell.

  So what else is new? Gadovan eyed his cousins with heavy-lidded resignation.

  Jude gave a ponderous mental sigh. We are definitely not getting paid enough for this.

  Twenty-five

  “He never opens his mouth without subtracting

  from the sum of human knowledge.”

  –The Second Vestal Dagmar Ranneskjöld,

  on Niko van Amstel

  Viernan hal’Jaitar had come to a decision.

  Viernan did not make decisions lightly. There were always so many things to consider before one decided anything. Firstly: who would be harmed? This was always the primary factor for consideration, since one must properly aim one’s arrow in order to hit one’s target.

  Secondly: who would be inadvertently helped? This outcome was to be avoided at all costs.

  Thirdly: how would he personally benefit? This was, surprisingly, not his first concern, so long as his name was not upon the list of who would be harmed?

  Decisions were serious business and the ken of tricksome gods. Decisions were the eternal stones upon which all of humanity trod, with each choice casting the next stepping stone a breath before one’s foot fell. It would either hold one’s weight or cast one into the stinking bog, based on how prudent the choice.

  Viernan had not always made prudent decisions. That’s why he was now swimming in shite trying to birth his escape out of Dore Madden’s limp sphincter.

  An afternoon rain had dissipated the autumn heat that usually baked the island fortress of Ivarnen. To take advantage of the breeze, Dore had moved their conference onto the terrace to the northwest, where the wide river seemed to flow straight out of the white-capped Iverness mountains. The falling sun was glinting off the waters, making a golden road to elsewhere. Viernan longed to follow it.

  Huhktu’s bones—he’d have swum the length of it if it meant escaping the madhouse that was Ivarnen!

  Leaving was sadly not in the cards. Leastwise not the cards Viernan currently held. Dore had Prince Radov in a healing sleep, though Viernan read this to mean sedated and out of the way. Moreover, Dore knew Viernan wouldn’t leave Ivarnen without his prince. And whatever plans he was making, Dore clearly wanted Viernan under his thumb the while.

  In his thoughts, Viernan kept traveling back-back-back, reviewing his choices from their earliest inception, trying to find the point where his path went awry. He couldn’t see any place he might’ve made a different turn, yet he couldn’t believe he’d been fated all along to end up...well, here.

  “What’s taking him so long, Dore?” Niko van Amstel was pacing a rut into the terrace patio while the lengthy folds of some ridiculous robe from Illume Belliel swished noisily around his feet. Jewels were stitched all over the robe in patterns of constellations and stars. Either his tailor should’ve been shot, or Niko had stolen the robe from a taller man’s closet, for he kept tripping over the hem.

  “Since when am I Leyd’s keeper?” Dore was perched on the terrace railing with his too-big boots braced against a marble planter, elbows leaning on his bony knees and a goblet dangling between his hands.

  Viernan was seeing Arion Tavestra in nearly every motion Dore made these days. It was like watching a macabre puppet show with badly crafted dolls that barely resembled the people they’d been made to represent. It disturbed him on multiple levels.

  Niko turned to pace in the opposite direction, passing the shadowed alcove where Viernan was standing with his back to the wall, the better to protect it from the stabbing knives of their lunacies. “I can’t abide this rebellion even a moment more, Dore,” Niko whined. “Not a moment, do you hear me?”

  “As clearly as a pack of howling hyenas,” muttered Demetrio Consuevé, who was reclining on a lounge chair with his boots crossed, eating a chicken leg.

  Ever rakish, Consuevé wore a short, embellished coat and lean pants in the style made popular by the Archduke of Rimaldi, his liege; he likewise wore a manicured moustache and goatee, both of which extended into sharp points, well oiled, like his condescension. His shoulder-length black hair was gathered in a tight queue bound by a ruby-studded band, an incongruous accoutrement next to the rapier and well-worn belt of daggers that never left his hips.

  “I don’t see what we need Leyd for.” Consuevé’s dark eyes followed a pacing Niko while disdain curled his upper lip. “Only a fool trusts a zanthyr.” Those dark eyes skimmed interestedly over to Viernan with mirth glinting in their depths. He waved the chicken leg idly as he asked, “Isn’t Leyd the whole reason you’re in the soup here, Viernan?”

  “And by this do you mean to imply that I am a fool?” Viernan inquired with a mordant stare.

  Niko eyed Consuevé irritably. “If you’d been doing your job, Consuevé, we wo
uldn’t need the zanthyr’s information.”

  “I told you, I have things in hand.”

  “In hand? In hand? The only thing you have in hand, Consuevé, is your foot, on its way to your mouth.” He frowned suddenly at the rather odd imagery this offered. “My point is, I went to considerable expense to orchestrate this trap for Carian vran Lea, which you swore would result in the location of the Nodefinder rebellion, but all I gained as a result is the enmity of the Lord Commander of the Tivaricum.”

  “We’re wise to vran Lea now,” Consuevé said, “and his pack of hounds. If any one of those rebellion dogs try to use our nodes—”

  “It’s not enough!” Niko abruptly spun to him, his face reddening. “I want this rebellion squashed! Pounded! Minced! Mashed to a pulp beneath my boots!”

  “You’re not wearing boots,” Consuevé pointed out reasonably.

  “That’s not the point!” Niko’s face went crimson. “I want them out of the path to my ascendency! I want their stain forever erased from my histories!”

  Consuevé bit off the last hunk of chicken meat and tossed the bone over the terrace rail, just missing Dore’s head. “I can lead them on a quick march to a bloody death easy enough,” he said while chewing energetically. “What do we need this zanthyr for?”

  Niko drew deeply of his patience, apparently, for he answered with renewed magnanimity, “Because you cannot find them, Consuevé.”

  “It’s only a matter of time if Rohre’s really dead.”

  Niko glared lengthily at him. “Franco Rohre is dead. I’ve told you a hundred times.” And though even Viernan had heard him say it with countless repetition, Niko continued gnawing on this bone of contention by grumbling, “He was bleeding out when I threw him onto the node bound in goracrosta. There’s no surviving the ley lines between worlds without access to his talent.”

  “Yeah...” Consuevé started picking his teeth with a piece of cartilage he’d saved from the chicken leg. He sounded dubious. “I’ve seen Rohre survive worse. The man’s like one of Madden’s golems—he just keeps bloody coming back, no matter what you do to him.”

  Niko pinned Consuevé beneath a belligerent stare through which he seemed to be attempting to raze this opinion from Consuevé’s mind. Failing to do so, he fell into petulance. “Well...Mir agrees with you.”

  He started pacing again bullishly. “He thinks Rohre will return to Illume Belliel, despite being dumped practically unconscious on the weld. He’s got the entire contingent of Warlocks in the cityworld on the lookout for him. Rohre will find some surprises, should he rise from the dead, believe you me.” Niko sighed dramatically. “Of course, I think it’s all tedious and unnecessary, but there’s no point arguing with Mir.”

  “I thought you were going to be the new Speaker,” Consuevé remarked around his enthusiastic teeth-cleaning. “Sounds to me like Arkadhi’s in charge.”

  Niko drew himself tall. “Mir doesn’t want to be Speaker.” Then he frowned, as if just then wondering why Mir didn’t want the seat of ultimate power, and possibly realizing that Mir’s seeming lack of political ambition in no way altered the fact that he actually was in charge.

  He darted a disagreeable look at Consuevé, perhaps for bringing this to his attention. “In any case, Rohre is not the point.”

  “Right. The point is the end of my rapier, and I don’t need a bloody zanthyr’s help finding Gannon Bair’s gut with it.”

  “But you need the zanthyr’s help finding Gannon Bair,” Dore pointed out with a glare that insinuated so much more than a warning to shut his mouth. “We cannot ascertain anything further about this rebellion until Leyd arrives, and I require your attention on other matters, Niko.”

  Niko’s perfectly coiffed blond head swiveled to Dore. “What is it that you want now? I’m not getting another Vestal ring, so don’t ask. That Abanachtran fellow never did return Alshiba’s ring to me.” He pouted down at his own ring. The stone, once a clear aquamarine, had become so clouded as to be cut of chalcedony.

  “The Lord Abanachtran wants the Warlocks to stay out of Alorin,” Dore told Niko. “You were supposed to have delivered this message to them upon their arrival in the cityworld.”

  Niko looked blankly back at him, then seemed to remember. “I did. I did. I read the whole speech he gave me.”

  “Yet Belloth returned here.”

  Niko gave him an aggrieved look. “He’s the Demon Lord, Dore. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Tell him no.”

  “He didn’t ask for my permission!”

  Dore sipped his wine. “Therein lies the problem. They must fear you, Niko.” He lifted a finger off his goblet to point at him, mimicking Arion’s manner exactly.

  Viernan suppressed a shudder.

  “You are to become the new Speaker. They must treat with you if they want to maintain access to the Realms of Light. All doors open through Illume Belliel and only through the cityworld. All doors open through you. This must be made clear, and any infractions severely punished.”

  Niko shoved hands on his hips. “And just how am I supposed to punish a Warlock? Tell me that.”

  “Let us engage our efforts more effectively, that drastic measures needn’t be taken,” Dore said with surprising equanimity.

  Reason out of the mouth of Dore Madden screamed with ear-curdling wrongness.

  Dore waggled a finger at Niko. “You should return to the cityworld so that your presence is felt and let Consuevé deal with the rats of this rebellion.”

  “Here, here,” Consuevé clucked.

  Niko deflated a bit, but then he irrepressibly rallied for another go, and he roused himself to declare, “Well...I do have terribly important things to attend to. Mir is concerned that we’ve heard naught from the Paladin Knights who went to T’khendar. We may have to take steps.”

  At which point his brow furrowed, perhaps with the realization that nowhere in this statement had he explained his own importance to the effort. Happening upon the answer, he nodded sagely. “I must be there to coordinate.”

  Dore cast him an unreadable look over the rim of his goblet. “The Lord Abanachtran will not be pleased to hear of the knights’ failure.”

  Niko scowled. “Who said they failed? I never said they failed. They may only be delayed.”

  “Or they may all be dead.” Consuevé nodded his head at the profound wisdom in this assessment. “I mean, it is the Fifth Vestal we’re talking about, ain’t it?”

  Niko glared exasperatedly at him.

  Dore pinned Niko with an excoriating stare. “If the Paladin Knights fail, the Lord Abanachtran will be forced to take action himself, Niko.”

  Niko threw up his hands. “What do you expect me to do, Dore? They’re in another realm. I can’t even get to them—no one can!”

  “Not since you tossed Franco Rohre onto the weld bound in goracrosta,” Consuevé noted helpfully. “Might’ve been a bit premature, that.”

  Niko glowered. “Consuevé, so help me—”

  Dore got down from the railing. “As you said, Niko. You have important things to do.” He walked to get more wine.

  Niko cast an unkind look at Dore, a smoldering Don’t-think-I’ll-forget-this glare at Consuevé, and stalked off the terrace without a glance at Viernan.

  Dore stared remotely after Niko until he was well and truly gone. Then he looked to Consuevé. “We may be forced to deal with Mir Arkadhi directly.”

  Consuevé grinned around the bit of cartilage clenched between his teeth. “Worse things have happened.”

  “You clearly have never met Mir Arkadhi,” a deep voice said amusedly from the opposite end of the terrace.

  Viernan turned his head to find the zanthyr Leyd perched on the railing. He wondered how long the creature had been concealing himself from their notice. Probably the entire time Niko van Amstel had been standing there wanting to talk to him.

  Consuevé showed him his teeth by way of a greeting. “Nice of you to slither in.”

  “But
I thought you didn’t need my help, Consuevé.”

  “You know all that was just for show.” Consuevé aimed him a saucy grin. “You’re my favorite of all the spiteful, malicious immortals I’ve thus far met. Not to say that you couldn’t have shown up sooner. I had to listen to Niko’s rant about Rohre ten bloody times if it was once.”

  Leyd pushed off the railing. “Van Amstel has enough babysitters in you three already.”

  Somehow, Viernan knew the zanthyr was including the Eltanin Seat Mir Arkadhi in that number.

  Leyd sauntered over to the table and the several decanters of wine sitting there. He still appeared to be raiding the Prophet’s closet, wearing dark silk pants and a velvet robe, his black shirt open to his waist, raven curls teasing a gilded collar. “So the little coup you were hoping for in T’khendar seems to have failed? I told you it would.”

  “You’re fast to gloat.” Dore aimed the creature a sepulchral stare as Leyd helped himself to the wine. “Know you something we don’t? Do share it with the group.”

  Leyd pressed a hand to his heart. “You don’t trust me, Madden? I’m crushed.”

  Consuevé removed the chunk of cartilage from his teeth. “Does anyone trust you?”

  Leyd eyed him lazily. “Trust is overrated.” He slung himself into a low chair and sipped his wine.

  “Trust is a fallacy.” Dore scanned his gaze over all of them as if assessing their constitutions for the malady called trust. “No one can really be trusted. The world itself cannot be trusted. There is no pattern to it. No guiding force, only chaos and chance. Trust, under those circumstances, will ensure all men find a rapid demise.”

  “Spoken like a true believer,” a grinning Leyd observed.

  Dore’s black gaze flashed to him. “As if deceit hasn’t been the only way you’ve survived this long.” He looked around at all of them. “Men are animals that must be chained and leashed. Just look at Arion Tavestra—”

  “Oh, balls, here we go.” Consuevé sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “The knave Tavestra abandoned Isabel van Gelderan—”

  “Who you never would’ve left had she been yours, blah, blah, blah. We’ve heard this a thousand times, Madden.” Consuevé sighed dramatically and waggled a finger at Leyd. “Float that decanter over here, will you, chum?”