The Sixth Strand

by Melissa McPhail

  “I feel it.” His hazel eyes went wide, and he turned a marveling expression across his attendants. “You...” but words failed him—as they should’ve—as he looked for the first time through eyes colored by elae.

  Every Adept in that room began exchanging glances both fierce and fearful, for indeed, Luftan was now present on the currents of elae.

  Finally, the Vestian who had suggested collaring Pelas spoke loudly for all to hear. “It is done! En Furie is fire-blessed!”

  Tentative applause grew into a somewhat forced ovation. No matter their personal opinions, not a person in that hall would’ve been so foolish as to openly appear anything but awe-filled at the Furie’s new condition.

  Luftan withdrew his hand from Pelas’s. “Stay,” he commanded Pelas, and on his knees Pelas remained.

  The applause drained quickly away, being only halfhearted and rather born of shock to begin with.

  Luftan smiled as he strode to the edge of the dais and looked around at the many stunned, upturned faces. “En Furies,” he announced to his honored guests, “behold, I am fire-blessed!”

  Again applause resounded, but one would be hard-pressed to believe it sincere from any quarter.

  He waved them all back to their own affairs and looked over his shoulder to issue some kind of subvocal command.

  Six guards suddenly moved in behind Tanis and the Eltanese.

  Striding forward with a dangerous smile, Luftan stopped before Tanis and the Nodefinders. “Now...what to do with you four?”

  Tanis held the Furie’s gaze and said in Agasi, that the Eltanese might understand without his having to mentally translate everything, “Release our companion and let us be on our way, as you agreed, en Furie.”

  “No-no-no, I fear the time for that has passed.” He looked Tanis over circumspectly, perhaps trying to see him through his new eyes, or else through those of the Adepts he’d bound—their rubies, like Pelas’s, either worn or held on his person. “Sardaar di Nostri will be staying here to show me this Pattern of Life and how to make it work.”

  “That wasn’t the agreement,” Pelas ground out as if fighting the collar’s binding on his thoughts. “Release me.”

  The Furie arched a brow condescendingly. “Whatever you are, di Nostri, you clearly work a power I think we all need to better understand.” His smile mocked them all. “A collar seems prudent, wouldn’t you say, Rustan?”

  The Vestian Adept bowed his agreement. “Verily, en Furie.”

  Gemina had tears streaming down her face. “Luftan,” she whispered, “please don’t do this.”

  He speared a look at her. “Are you not pleased, mother? Your lover has returned to you after all these years—clearly immortal, as you suspected—and now sits captive to your whim.” He added as he sank down on his couch, “You should be thanking me.”

  Giving a measured exhale, he fixed a contemplative gaze on Pelas, who remained on his knees wearing a fierce scowl as he appeared to wrestle with the hold the collar had over him. “Or perhaps I’ll take the illustrious Immanuel di Nostri to my bed,” Luftan said more softly, but with a cold, knife-edged intent that sent a chill down Tanis’s arms. “Like father, like son.”

  Tanis was all too aware of the tall guards at their backs, and the masses of eyes watching them, and the swirling currents in the room, which had started to resemble a turbulent sea.

  “Respectfully, en Furie,” the lad entreated, politely but insistently, “I must request again that you release our companion from this unlawful collar and allow us to go about our duty upon the weld, per our accord, witnessed by all present.”

  The Furie barked a laugh. “Isn’t this one the young diplomat?”

  The others of his entourage joined him in chuckling at Tanis’s expense.

  Luftan spread his arms along the back of his couch and grinned around at the others. “Did you hear his words? Unlawful collars.”

  His retainers snickered, while the Furie himself stared at Tanis with dark rumination swirling in his gaze. The Vestian Adept especially was watching Tanis with a hungering anticipation.

  “Tanis of Adonnai, was it?” Luftan adopted a patronizing curl of lip. “You come to my court bearing a mythical name and expect me to afford you diplomatic rights?”

  Gemina hid her face in her hands.

  Tanis exhaled a slow sigh. “Do you formally renege on our accord, my lord?”

  The Furie laughed out loud. “Can you believe the gall of this boy? Yes, I formally renege, if you must have it spelled out for you.”

  Tanis held the Furie’s gaze, but inside he was jumping up and down. We’ve got him!

  Pelas sent him a mental chuckle. Hook, line and sinker.

  He rose to his feet before Luftan.

  The Furie’s eyes flashed. “Kneel before me, di Nostri.”

  “I fear the time for that has passed, en Furie.”

  The Eltanese spread their arms and stepped away from each other, drawing curious looks. Then each crossed his thumbs before himself.

  “What is the meaning of—” but the Furie’s words died on his tongue, slaughtered by astonishment.

  A mighty nimbus was encasing Gadovan, Mathias and Jude as their armor formed in shimmers of dazzling, kaleidoscopic light—blinding, like sunlight on the sea. Patterns swirled across the surface and vanished back to the depths as the armor solidified into armet and breastplates, pauldrons, vambraces, gauntlets and cuisse. Each part appeared to be formed of liquid light, radiant and mirror-sharp.

  In the space of an indrawn breath, three Paladin Knights of Illume Belliel stood before the startled aristocracy of Pashmir.

  “Luftan Anshirali,” they intoned together in booming voices that shook the draperies and made the closest onlookers cover their ears, “you stand in contempt of the laws of Illume Belliel, to whose covenants this realm bows, and to which all Adepts are subject.”

  In the reverberating silence that followed this pronouncement, while the echoes of the Knights’ declaration faded, the onlookers in the room reached the same realization that Luftan did.

  The Furie visibly blanched.

  “Being newly awakened to the lifeforce in the realm of Alorin,” Gadovan intoned, “you are now subject to Adept law. The collars you have used to subjugate and bind Adepts are classified as devices of unlawful intent by unanimous decree of the Council of Realms. You will desist all use of such collars and stand penitent before the Council’s lawful representative, one Tanis di Adonnai, deputized by this realm’s Fifth Vestal Björn van Gelderan to pass judgment in his stead.”

  The wave of gasps that washed through the room at this would’ve bowled over half the guests if they hadn’t all been so transfixed by wonder or mortification.

  “Do you submit to Deputy di Adonnai’s lawful judgment, we will see the punishment for these charges mitigated. Should you deny the Vestal’s lawful deputy, we will find you guilty as charged.”

  Luftan had found his feet and was staring red-faced and furious at the Paladin Knights, his hands in fists and shaking at his sides. The knights had barely finished before he snarled, “Slay these pretenders!”

  “Oh, Luftan,” Gemina murmured, “you really don’t see what’s happening here.”

  The Furie’s retainers and guards exchanged uncertain glances.

  Luftan turned to Pelas and raised the fist with the ruby clenched within. “Di Nostri,” he hissed, “whatever you are, you will take steps to stop this farce!”

  A faint half-smile hitched one corner of Pelas’s mouth. “And here I thought you would never ask, en Furie.”

  Tanis well knew that collar had about as much hope of containing Pelas’s power as a lantern had of shuttering the sun.

  The whole time Pelas had been wearing the collar, he’d been studying the molecular elements comprising the metal thread.

  Tanis felt Pelas now reaching out, seeking that same element in collars and cuffs, necklaces and rings—every place the metal existed—and not merely in the Furie’s palace
but far across the Agni Sagara, as far as his starpoints could extend.

  Through his connection to Pelas, Tanis perceived a vast, mercuric latticework forming in Pelas’s mind.

  Then, with the single thought—Become—he turned the entire latticework into air.

  Cuffs simply evaporated. Necklaces disintegrated into their component parts. Gemstones fell in cascades from around necks and wrists in such profusion that the clatter became a waterfall’s swollen roar.

  The Vestian Adept grabbed his throat and staggered backwards through the draperies, ripping them down.

  And every bound Adept for leagues around Pashmir found themselves suddenly and inexplicably freed.

  In moments, the entire hall had devolved into chaos.

  Luftan was shouting from behind a line of guards. His advisors and guests were climbing over each other to escape while the Vestian lay twitching in a tangle of drapes, clutching wildly at his neck. Some of the Furie’s guards attempted to attack the knights, but Gadovan’s flashing blade felled them so quickly that the rest threw down their weapons and backed away.

  Amid the chaos, Tanis approached the Furie with Pelas behind him—his constant, unwavering north star. The guards didn’t know what to do.

  Tanis stopped before them and met each of their alarmed gazes in turn, entreating calm with his own. “I won’t harm your Furie.” And because he was a truthreader, they lowered their weapons and stepped aside.

  Leaving Tanis to face Luftan, who had gone very pale.

  “En Furie,” the lad said quietly, letting his words speak on the fourth strand, Adept mind to Adept mind, “you stand at the fork of immortality. Think hard and well which way you will proceed. On one path, the blessings of the Adept race await you. Should you respect your newly found nature and the Alir, the heartlight, in all Adepts, may you find a blessed and fruitful eternity. However,” and here Tanis fixed upon and held the Furie’s wild-eyed gaze, “should you choose to defy the Council’s decree; should you continue subjugating your fellow Adepts, experimenting upon and binding them against their will; there will be no quarter of this realm where the Fifth Vestal’s headsman cannot find you. And en Furie, his blades know no mercy.”

  The Furie stared at him.

  “Choose, Luftan, son of Gabriel,” Pelas murmured.

  Luftan’s eyes darted to Pelas, to Tanis, to those still watching. To his mother. “I...will submit,” he whispered.

  “Then may Epiphany grace you, en Furie.” Tanis bowed to him. “We will take our leave, by your leave.”

  Looking stunned, drained...defeated, he nodded.

  The knights clapped their gauntleted hands together, and their armor vanished. Gadovan sheathed his sword beneath his robe, and the three of them split to allow Tanis and Pelas to pass.

  They strode unhindered through the remaining guests and emerged into the grand hall on the unexplored left side.

  So...which way to the weld again? Mat asked as they stopped in the grand hall to get their bearings. It was a veritable ghost town compared to their first view of it. The lengthy tables of food stood abandoned, and glittering gemstones covered the floor.

  Gadovan sighed. Damn it, I knew we forgot something.

  Jude was eyeing the small door across the way, which someone, or many someones had left ajar in their panicked exodus. While one of you figures out where the weld is, do you think I might—

  No, Gadovan and Mat said together.

  Fifty-nine

  “To deny the summons is only to delay the inevitable.

  What a man can be he must be.”

  –The wielder Marius di L'Arlesé, High Lord of Agasan

  From the moment an unseen force roped Tannour into that portal of glossy darkness, everything became a blur—a hasty, hurried, agonizing, mystifying, frenzied, urgent blur, during which time Tannour could only really focus on one unbelievable truth, uttered with startling nonchalance, like remarking upon a notable flower, or the color of a kite:

  ‘I can unwork patterns.’

  Ean val Lorian’s words circled Tannour’s head like the light of a tower beacon, around and around, blindingly bright, with each passing stripping away some false truth he’d upheld.

  ‘I can unwork patterns.’

  Tannour had never imagined such a skill to be possible. Now he was watching the val Lorian prince attempting to heal his brother of Dore Madden’s curse through the almost inconceivable gift of unworking.

  The enormous palace where Ean had brought them crowned a mountaintop, and if told from the number of lights shining hither and yon, it formed a city nearly unto itself. Ean had Trell on a bed and was sitting beside him with both hands on his head, his own eyes closed, occasionally murmuring.

  Air rippled around him on multiple wavelengths.

  The Warlock—

  by the Two Paths, a fething Warlock!

  —had gone with the prince whose palace they’d invaded...a Kandori prince, from the looks of his clothing, with a handsome smile and the crystalline eyes of a lightbender; and who, by some miracle of chance, had still been awake at the ungodly hour of their arrival, apparently at work in his laboratory—whatever that implied—and who was surprisingly possessed of empty bedrooms perfect for unworking dark patterns, as well as enormous patience, especially for ‘val Lorian princes and their absurdly dangerous exploits.’

  They’d only had time for the briefest of introductions before Ean set to work undoing Dore’s pattern of changing, but Ean had laughed uproariously when Tannour had told him that he’d thought he was the Lord Abanachtran coming for Trell.

  Now Tannour stood on the terrace, staying clear of the power pulsing around Ean, trying to decide if he’d somehow gotten stuck in an alternate dimension without realizing it.

  ‘I can unwork patterns.’

  Is that how his uncle had managed his escape from the Sorceresy’s claws?

  Feeling ragged, relieved on some level but taut with apprehension on most of the others, Tannour leaned elbows on the railing and stared off over a dark valley, the moonless Kandori night making a perfect canvas for his memory...

  %

  It was odd to recall those days in Tal’Shira by the Sea, to think of the multitude of abilities he’d possessed before his masters had untethered him, a nearly unlimited repertoire of skills perfected for infiltration and assassination.

  How easily he’d found his target, this man who Viernan hal’Jaitar’s Shamshir’im had spent years fruitlessly hunting. How simple it had been for Tannour to infiltrate the labyrinth of traps his target had erected around himself for protection.

  What hadn’t been easy was discovering that man he’d been ordered to kill was his own uncle.

  Tannour had stood across the drawing room from his target with his heart thudding in his ears, feeling the tattoos binding him to the assassination growing icy around his wrists and a raw panic uncoiling in his core. “Uncle?”

  “Ah...Tannour.” His uncle couldn’t see his face, but who else would be standing there in the blind mask of a ver’alir assassin, calling him uncle? “So they sent you.” He exhaled a deep sigh of resignation. “I should’ve known this would happen.”

  Tannour ripped off his hood. “Joren, what the fethe?” He took an agonized step closer and then thought better of it and stepped back again.

  His uncle shook his head. “I’m so sorry, nephew.” He closed his colorless eyes for a moment, as if to pay last respects to a life well led. When he lifted his gaze back to Tannour, it burned with regret. “Do what you have to do.”

  Tannour recoiled. “Fethe, Joren, I’m not touching you! I don’t care what they do to me.”

  Joren regarded him gravely. “You may care very much, in the end.”

  Tannour still couldn’t believe this was happening. Forcing him to betray Loukas was one thing—ultimately he’d done it to save Loukas’s life—but expecting him to assassinate his own blood kin?

  “I—I didn’t know it was you,” Tannour stammered. “The name o
n the mission orders—”

  “I’m known by many names now.”

  Tannour stared at him in abject shock.

  Joren poured two glasses of arak and set one on a table in the middle of the room. Then he retreated to his side to allow Tannour to safely claim the glass.

  To bring their energies together was too dangerous. The Sorceresy had marked Joren with as many tattoos as Tannour. They couldn’t afford to get near one another.

  Tannour accepted the drink and retreated to the doorway. “I don’t understand.” He drank the arak, feeling it flame in his throat, trying to think through the meanings and ramifications of this meeting. “How is it the Sorceresy doesn’t know where you are? Why did they have to send me after you?”

  His uncle motioned him towards a chair against the wall and himself took one near his desk. He spun it to face Tannour and sank down, resting elbows on his knees. “Have you killed for them before?”

  Tannour perched on the edge of the chair. His assassin’s garb bristled with daggers. He felt like every one of them was stabbing him in the back. “Not like this.”

  “Not a sanctioned mission,” his uncle concluded. “Nothing with a seal.”

  Tannour nodded.

  His uncle exhaled a slow breath. “The first sealed kill is vital to their hold over you. It activates a pattern that will bind you to their will. I think you know which one I mean.”

  Tannour stared hard at his uncle. “Fethe, is that—that can’t be true.”

  Joren replied with a grim smile. “Can I lie, nephew?”

  Tannour knew exactly the tattoo Joren was referencing—a circle inked at the small of his back, surrounded by patterns but itself remaining empty. He’d always wondered about it, but Kmourra would never speak of its purpose.

  Joren sat back and sipped his arak, his colorless eyes assessing Tannour, ever calculating. “If you fail to secure the kill...” he shook his head, “they’ll probably sever your tether, Tannour.”

  Tannour slowly sank in his chair. “They can do that?” he breathed.

  “Your tattoos make it possible.”

  “So if I kill you, I’m fethed, and if I don’t kill you, I’m doubly fethed.”