The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  It cartwheeled into a Saldarian that had given chase, and the two of them crashed through a wall. More Saldarians appeared out of the fog. One threw a dagger at Sebastian, which he only noticed when it rebounded off the field generated by his vest.

  The prince reclaimed his bow from the grass and put an arrow through the Saldarian and another through the last eidola, just as it was climbing out from the shattered wall. It fell backwards onto the rubble.

  Sebastian stood for a moment in silence then, feeling his chest rise and fall and his breath shoot frost into the fog. Then he meticulously reclaimed his weapons from the fallen.

  Rhys joined him shortly thereafter, stepping dispassionately over the dead, wiping his blade on a bit of cloth torn from someone’s cloak. “Well...that’s done.”

  Sebastian’s head was pounding as hard as his heart. He secured the last of the daggers back in the sheath at his thigh—he’d made the mistake of leaving one behind once and had never heard the end of it from Bahman—and followed Rhys back to the steps, where he viewed the carnage littering the ruins.

  “A dozen eidola and a squad of Saldarians to take us?” Sebastian shook his head. “That’s insulting.”

  Rhys looked quietly over the dead. “This definitely won’t go unremarked. Next time they’ll be better prepared.”

  Sebastian clapped him on the arm. “And so will we. Stay close, Captain.” He jogged off into the fog.

  “Like a shadow, my prince.” Rhys returned softly as he followed.

  Seeming as one, they melted away into the night.

  Thirty-five

  “The future is an utterly empty canvas in these parts.

  No one is doing anything with it.”

  –The Warlock Rafael, to Ean val Lorian

  Ean stood on a breezy rooftop in the Sacred City of Faroqhar, studying the copy he’d made of himself. The mirror image appeared completely solid to his perception; but while the autumn breeze pushed his actual cinnamon hair into his eyes, the copy’s hair in front of him remained perfectly coiffed.

  Ean shifted his intent slightly. Patterns restructured, and the copy’s hair began to waver as if tossed by the breeze. Fortunately, he’d be inside that evening, so he wouldn’t have to constantly adjust his illusion to accurately reflect the weather.

  Returning to Alorin had engendered a palpable relief. Ean had missed the unique chemistry of the realm’s lifeforce reacting with his innate composition, wakening elemental perceptions so different from those in T’khendar and impossible to perceive in Shadow. He drew deeply of the fifth and in one slow exhale reveled in the ubiquitous pull of gravity, the molecular elasticity of the air, the static charge building between layered clouds...and surprisingly, to the north, a persistent tugging that he recognized as his binding with Darshan.

  He was so tempted to contact the Malorin’athgul, to tell him all that he’d learned in T’khendar—by Cephrael’s Great Book! Should Darshan ever become as invested in the game as Pelas, the Balance would shift overnight!—but he understood that Darshan had to come to terms with his own demons. Interrupting that process would only hinder them in the end.

  And the game’s end loomed, Ean could sense that, too.

  It hovered too near to make any more mistakes, for Isabel would not survive them. Everywhere he went now, Ean carried this cold pearl of certainty lodged uncomfortably against his heart.

  He was somehow key to her salvation. Björn had hinted at it, Ean suspected it, and he’d seen a shadow of this belief mirrored in Isabel’s colorless eyes when he’d been kissing her goodbye.

  Paradoxically, though Isabel’s problem lay in T’khendar, Ean felt strongly that its solution would be found in Alorin.

  Her parting kiss still lingered on his lips, even as her thoughts lingered near his own, fingers of connection maintaining contact as long as possible as their owners walked their separate ways.

  For some reason, the moment stirred a memory...

  %

  Arion resisted the urge to use the second strand to quicken his steps as he hurried down the wide passageway, past lecture halls and seminar rooms, towards the auditorium at the end. A line of praetorians stood guard before the doors, while a lone figure paced behind the bars of their resolve.

  Arion picked up his pace, wondering why the Emperor of Agasan’s personal legion would be guarding an innocuous Sormitáge lecture hall like the doors to the imperial vaults.

  Behind the praetorians, Cristien Tagliaferro was pacing with his characteristic whiplash intensity. The moment he noticed Arion coming, the truthreader pushed past the praetorians and jogged down the corridor to meet him.

  “What took you so long?” He took Arion’s arm and urged him towards the lecture hall, as if Arion wasn’t already walking as fast as his legs and propriety would allow.

  “I was in the middle of an examination with the maestro. You try telling Markal Morrelaine you need to cut the lesson short to go see about a girl and see how well that goes over.”

  Cristien angled him a look. “Attending a lecture given by the High Mage of the Citadel is ‘going to see about a girl’ to you?”

  Arion aimed a culpable smile at him by way of his answer.

  Seeming a granite pillar before the auditorium doors, the Praetorian Captain Marius di L'Arlesé stood with hands on sturdy hips, all ten fingers glinting with Sormitáge rings, his gaze keen to Arion’s approach.

  But all Arion noted of the captain, honestly, were those patterned gold bands. He would have his first row soon—he was only two rings away and would’ve been just one ring shy if only the maestro would’ve let him test for his fourth-strand Doyen ring.

  Doyen was the Sormitáge assignation for bracketed Adepts, such as himself and Cristien, who were trying to complete their first row.

  “You’ve got to be at least five years off a full row yet,” Cristien muttered under his breath, picking up on Arion’s thought. “Hardly soon. And that’s if the maestro lets you test for your fourth Doyen this year.”

  “Five years for a normal Adept,” Arion quipped with a grin.

  “I agree you’re far from normal.” Cristien said this in the kind of derogatory tone that only close friends could lob at each other with impunity.

  Then they reached Marius di L'Arlesé and prudently assumed more sedate and respectful countenances.

  Marius looked the two of them over with excruciating scrutiny. To Cristien, he remarked, “Is this the man you’ve been waiting for, then?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Marius shifted a steely gaze to Arion. “Show me your rings.”

  “Captain, this is Arion Tavestra,” Cristien said, like that was supposed to mean something to the Emperor’s praetorians.

  “I don’t care if he’s Björn van Gelderan,” Marius growled, proving Arion’s unspoken thought. His gaze darkened to the color of slag. “Show me your rings.”

  Arion showed him his rings.

  He felt a pinch of the fifth, and a snap, like a wet linen flicked against his palms. His rings glowed with a silver nimbus.

  Apparently now satisfied that Arion was who he was supposed to be, Marius grunted and stepped aside. “The lecture’s already begun. No one else will be allowed to enter or exit. The doors will be barred with the fifth.” He said this looking directly at Arion.

  Arion couldn’t tell if the captain had meant this as a warning, or if it was just information Marius thought he should have.

  If it had been Markal standing there like the proverbial stone guarding the cave of riches, Arion would’ve thought of some pithy quip, but no one was so fool as to run his mouth off to the Praetorian Captain Marius di L'Arlesé—leastwise no one still regularly seeing the light of day.

  Cristien grabbed Arion’s sleeve and dragged him past the praetorians and into the lecture hall.

  The auditorium sat three hundred souls and was standing room only. Cristien wove past students and maestros packed into the rear of the hall as he led Arion towards the aisle where he
’d saved their seats. The onlookers generally gave them irritated looks as they pushed past—that is, unless they recognized Arion, whereupon they gave way somewhat less begrudgingly.

  Arion reflected that there were certain perks to nearly having your first row in the time it took most Adepts to gain a single bracket.

  As they reached the leftmost aisle of stairs, the docent in charge of the day’s lecture finished her introductions, and the High Mage of the Citadel took the stage amid thunderous applause.

  Isabel van Gelderan made an impressive figure in her iridescent High Mage’s robes, but with her chestnut hair caught up in a cascade of curls, and her eyes so gloriously crystalline, even from a distance, Arion found her beauty to be utterly transcendent and far more mesmerizing than the importance of her position.

  For a moment, he stood transfixed.

  He hadn’t seen her in several years—not since their stroll through the Giardino del Vento Ehst, where he’d spontaneously sworn some kind of ridiculous oath promising undying fealty. She’d laughed and said they weren’t making any knights that day, but perhaps Arion would accompany her on a walk through the gardens.

  He’d written every word of their encounter in his journal and reread it far too many times to admit to anyone.

  A persistent tugging finally summoned Arion’s awareness back to the moment, whereupon he found Cristien glaring at him. He mouthed sorry and pushed himself into motion again.

  They found their seats at the far-left end of the fifth row. Arion sank quietly down, still wondering why the High Mage of the Citadel was teaching a master class to the Doyens. It was something on the order of the Emperor addressing a meeting of a village council.

  Then he noticed the veiled girl sitting all by herself in the front row, surrounded by two entirely empty rows, and suddenly he understood the presence of both the High Mage and the Praetorian Guard.

  It wasn’t every day that the Emperor’s daughter-heir attended a lecture at the Sormitáge. Then again, it wasn’t every day that the High Mage of the Citadel gave one.

  Arion was so curious as to how this had all come about that he missed most of the High Mage’s introduction and only really focused in on her lecture when she brought up the Ninth Esoteric.

  Pure concept always overwhelms linear translation.

  “Illusion and the Ninth Es,” Cristien whispered significantly at his ear. “Isn’t that the exact premise you’re presenting to the maestro to convince him to let you test for your fourth Doyen ring?”

  Arion nodded. He said low in reply, “But he claims I’m not ready.”

  Cristien’s colorless gaze posed, Maybe this is your chance.

  Arion frowned and looked back to the High Mage.

  He’d been praying to every god in the known to make the maestro recant and let him test for his fourth Doyen ring, and here now the High Mage herself stood, barely five rows away from him. All he had to do was somehow show her what he could accomplish with illusions and he’d have earned his Doyen ring.

  He sat through most of her talk barely listening. It was like she was reading his dissertation word for word, her rationale followed so closely to his own train of extrapolation. He was so engrossed in trying to figure out a way to approach her that he nearly missed his opportunity.

  If not for Cristien elbowing him hard in the side and giving him an are-you-even-listening? stare, the chance would’ve passed him by completely.

  Arion focused back in on silence. A glance around the lecture hall indicated that the High Mage had asked a question that no one wanted to answer, or else couldn’t answer.

  Arion cleared his throat as he stood. “Your pardon, High Mage.” He broke the uncomfortable silence with a smile cast around the room. “Would it be too much to ask you to repeat the question?”

  Shocked whispering whisked through the audience.

  The High Mage turned her gaze to him. He felt her attention palpably fix upon his face, felt her mind enwrapping his own. She’d embraced Absolute Being, claiming the space of the entire room as her own.

  Arion quickly did the same, which was both a break of protocol and terribly impudent. But otherwise, they couldn’t stand on equal ground—and he’d be damned if he’d allow Isabel van Gelderan to see him as anything less than an equal.

  His classmates probably saw lightning in her eyes, but Arion could’ve sworn the shadow of amusement danced there. “Were you not listening, Signore Tavestra?” she inquired coolly.

  Arion flashed a culpable smile. “I admit I was daydreaming a bit, High Mage.”

  His classmates twittered at this like angry jaybirds at a tomcat. Arion barely heard them, though, for he was basking in the heat of Isabel van Gelderan’s attention.

  She arched a brow infinitesimally. “Daydreaming.” The word held a husky quality that begged a very good explanation.

  “Yes.” He offered a cavalier grin in lieu of excuses. “So I didn’t hear your question, but I’m sure I could provide an answer, if you wouldn’t mind repeating it.”

  The maestros in the standing room rumbled their outrage. His classmates went all large eyes and hot whispers. Markal would have boxed his ears if he’d been there.

  Cristien was staring open-mouthed at him.

  Isabel considered his request with a finger poised beneath her chin. Arion thought she might’ve been suppressing a smile. He hoped to thirteen hells she wasn’t just thinking of some way to make an example out of his irreverence.

  After what felt a lengthy consideration, yet in which probably only three grains of sand passed through the hourglass, Isabel clasped hands behind her back and returned her gaze to the audience. “Would someone who was paying attention please repeat my question for Signore Tavestra?”

  In the front row, the woman who would one day become Agasan’s Empress stood and turned to face him. The hall fell silent.

  “Signore Tavestra,” Princess Valentina nodded politely to him.

  “Your Highness,” he bowed in return.

  “The High Mage asked if anyone could explain how, if solidity is monitored by Absolute Being, per the Seventh Esoteric, and solidity monitors structure, per the Thirteenth Law, then, if a wielder has claimed Absolute Being fully, how could his illusions fail to achieve solidity?”

  Arion bowed to the Princess Heir. “Thank you, Your Highness. I understand the question.”

  She nodded to him and retook her seat.

  Arion looked back to the High Mage.

  There was challenge aplenty in her gaze, which she held unerringly upon him. “Have you an answer, Signore Tavestra?”

  For you, my lady, always.

  Cristien kicked Arion’s boot, his eyes wide.

  But Arion couldn’t think the thought loud enough for Isabel to hear it without also sharing it with every truthreader within the radius of his intent. Fortunately, there were only three or so, all of whom turned in their seats to stare at him.

  “It’s the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Esoteric that give us the answer, my lady,” Arion offered with a smile in his eyes. “Perhaps...if I might join the High Mage on the stage to give a demonstration?”

  Half the class audibly gasped. The other half gaped. The maestros speared reprimand in grumbling complaint. The rest watched in a hum of curiosity to see how the High Mage would respond.

  Arion supposed it was a bit bold to ask to join her on the stage. But from their admittedly limited interaction, he’d gotten the impression that boldness was the only way to win the High Mage of the Citadel’s attention.

  As the hubbub of disbelief was ebbing, Isabel nodded faintly to give her permission, which elicited a whole new wave of speculative murmuring.

  Arion flashed a grin at his classmates and started down the steps.

  Every head swiveled to watch him make his descent. He didn’t question the outcome—he knew exactly the effect he intended—but he could tell from the whispered commentary bouncing through the audience that not a few of his classmates were hoping his little
stunt would end in him lying flat on his face, and not in a metaphorical sense.

  He stopped before the steps and summoned a rose into his hand. This, he offered with his most eloquent bow.

  After a moment’s pause, Isabel took the rose with a what-are-you-up-to? look.

  Arion smiled up at her. “If I might join the High Mage upon the platform?”

  She waved the rose to give him leave. “By all means, Signore Tavestra. We’re all ears for your answer.”

  Arion stepped up and turned to face the murmuring audience, who quieted quickly. Hundreds of eyes watched, as many with interest as with vengeful anticipation.

  “I invite your attention to the rose I’ve just given our illustrious High Mage,” Arion told them. “Without studying it on the currents, who can tell if it is real or illusion?”

  When no one immediately answered, he posed, “You all know I’m fifth strand. Did I conjure this rose out of aether or air, or is it merely a trick of the fourth? Who can say?”

  “The High Mage motioned with it like it was real,” someone called from higher up.

  “She’s obviously subject to the same illusion as the rest of us,” another man challenged.

  “But it must be solid if she’s holding it,” a third rebutted from the other side of the room.

  “Solid to the High Mage, in any event,” pronounced Princess Valentina, with a little smirk, from the front row.

  “Solidity of illusion is monitored by what?” Arion asked the audience.

  “Absolute Being,” his classmates replied.

  Arion nodded. “You claim the space of thought and therefore have the capacity to control what the people influenced by that space are able to see within it.”

  He made the rose vanish from Isabel’s hand and reappear in front of each person in the hall individually. The class gave a collective gasp.

  This had basically been his plan for the Doyen Trial, the one he’d been begging the maestro to let him test for, the one that would’ve secured him his Fourth Doyen ring and left him one ring away from his first row.

  He would summon a rose, then make it reappear in front of all of the Mages...he’d been practicing for weeks to be able to hold so many illusions solidly at once.