Kjieran stopped breathing.
“I know that he denied you, turned you away from his service. Is it not fitting then this reward? Are you not grateful for the chance to serve me in eliminating him and gain your due retribution?”
“I live for your s-service, my lord,” Kjieran stammered, knowing now that he was doomed.
“I would that you kill the king during this parley. It is the opportune time, when the fault may be laid at the feet of any number of others.”
“But…” Kjieran searched desperately for some counter to this plan. “But King Gydryn is Radov’s ally, my lord. Would not such an act against the prince’s allies endanger your relationship with M’Nador?”
“Radov’s duplicity has taken royal blood before on behalf of the Duke of Morwyk,” the Prophet remarked dismissively. “Mention not the task you are upon for me, yet trust that none in Tal’Shira shall prevent you from its accomplishment.”
Kjieran struggled to focus—had the Prophet really just intimated that Radov was behind the deaths of Prince Sebastian and Trell on behalf of Stephan val Tryst, Duke of Morwyk? Dear Epiphany—Radov claimed to be the king’s ally!
The Prophet cupped Kjieran’s face with one hand, and had Kjieran not known him so well, he might’ve imagined there was tenderness in the gesture. Bethamin’s eyes seared into him, pinning him with their force, snaring his attention to the exclusion of all else. “In you I have discovered new ideas,” the Prophet confessed, rousing Kjieran’s foreboding to alarming levels, “concepts as yet untried and untested. You have alerted me to bold new areas where I might venture…and you have engendered something I have never known before.”
Abruptly he leaned and captured Kjieran’s mouth with his own. The kiss that time was fierce. Bethamin held his face with both hands and took of him what he would. His mouth was demanding, his tongue a flame that stole Kjieran’s breath, and suffusing every part of his kiss was the Prophet’s hunger for him.
When Bethamin finally released him, it was only to rest his forehead against Kjieran’s as if the kiss had been an intimate connection and not a brutal rape. “I find that what I desire, Kjieran,” he told him quietly, “is to give you what you desire.”
Kjieran was reeling. He didn’t know where this was going, only that it was nowhere he wanted to be. “How?” he whispered, agonized and terrified.
“The greatest reward: to serve me as the first of your kind. Bound to me, that I might truly know your mind—”
Kjieran tore away from the Prophet in revulsion, staggering into a marble throne, his entire being railing against such horror.
Mistaking his reaction, the Prophet collected him back into his arms. “You desired freedom, and I am giving it to you. This is what you wanted, is it not?”
Kjieran froze, his mind in a panic. He couldn’t think of a single way to avoid this inevitable outcome, and the knowledge pierced him so wholly that he could barely breathe. His soul was hemorrhaging.
“As my newest servant, you will be bound to me body and soul. Dore assures me the only end for such as you will become is immolation.” He ran his hand down Kjieran’s face, blending in his tears, and said in an ominous voice, “You shall be mine forever more.”
Kjieran gasped, “This is freedom?”
The Prophet laid his forehead against Kjieran’s again, his powerful arms still holding him, already binding him to his will. “I do not wish to compel you, Kjieran,” he murmured as if an intimate troth. “I know you are strong enough—brave enough—to give me honesty in return for these graces I bestow upon you. You’ve proven this to me. It is still true, is it not?”
Sucking in a shuddering breath, Kjieran nodded.
“But if I must compel you, I will do so,” the Prophet warned. “Dore assures me the bond will facilitate compulsion once the conversion is complete.”
With this ominous caution, a promise and a farewell, the Prophet grazed his lips across Kjieran’s forehead and then stepped back. Abruptly rough hands grabbed Kjieran’s arms and hauled him backwards into the stone chair, and ropes were slung about his body, binding him to it.
Dore arrived then, coming into the yard out of Kjieran’s sight—he only heard the wielder’s voice as he advised, “You will need some of his blood, my lord. It must be within your energy as you form the binding.”
“How much blood?”
“Half a teaspoon is enough.”
Kjieran had shut his eyes as the Prophet claimed another kiss. His mouth scalded him, and then the Prophet bit hard into his lip. Kjieran mumbled a muted cry but it was lost within Bethamin’s seal upon his mouth. The Prophet sucked on his lip until it flamed and throbbed, and then, finally, he withdrew.
Kjieran had always promised himself he would meet his fate with dignity, walking calmly toward death with stoic resolve, but this fear was too intense, too severe. He trembled and shook—he may have even wept, so lost did he feel in those dreadful moments. Yet he knew what he must do.
Once he had prepared for this day, but it was a day he’d also prayed would never come. Yet Raine had laid in his own patterns of protection. He had taught Kjieran—ingrained in him—how to survive Bethamin’s Fire. While Kjieran imagined this binding would be a thousand seasons worse, he could not afford to lose the hope that somehow he might survive it. He had to. Otherwise the Prophet would merely send another in his place. Kjieran stood as King Gydryn’s only hope.
He heard Raine’s voice echoing in memory…return to your core, shelter within the deepest levels of your mind where I have built a refuge for you, protect yourself…
He barely heard Dore explaining, “…ensure he survives the change, we must bind him to you first. Here, I will show you the patterns…”
Time passed, and Kjieran sank deeper into himself, sealing away all perceptions of the world, losing touch with his arms pulled so painfully taut against the marble chair and the abrasive ropes that cut into his ankles. Finding shelter behind Raine’s patterns, even forgetting for a moment what was to come until he heard Dore say, “You must bind him now to you with the pattern I have just shown you, and then I will work the pattern of changing…”
Kjieran squeezed his eyes shut as he felt Bethamin lay hands upon his head, felt the man’s cold power seeping into him. The pattern of binding came at him then, thunderous and violent, roaring through his mind in a hurricane of scalding power that vaporized thought and seared memory, setting his soul to flame.
Kjieran screamed without knowing it, for the part of him that was still himself sheltered like a shadow in the deepest recesses of Raine’s refuge. He had no idea how long he screamed, how long the working took to take hold, but he knew the moment Dore’s hand found his head to work his own fell pattern—for no matter how he cowered in fear and pain, no matter how he trembled like a tiny creature trapped at the bottom of a deep, dark well, he could not shield any part of himself from Dore’s Pattern of Changing.
Into the vacuum of life Dore murmured, “Now you will die and be reborn.”
And Kjieran was.
Twenty-Four
“The only dependable virtue a man possesses is greed.”
- Radov abin Hadorin, Ruling Prince of M’Nador
Tanis and Pelas walked the harbor road past wharves and docks and an untold forest of shipping vessels. Wherever they’d arrived, the water was amazingly blue.
Pelas still had his bundle of swords over one shoulder, and though it had to be heavy, he carried it as effortlessly as a bag of down. Tanis regarded him fretfully. In the daylight, he could clearly see the blood soaking one side of his fine silk shirt.
“Sir, you’re hurt.”
Pelas eyed his side and the long gash peeking through the knife-slit in his shirt. “A hazard, I suppose. It would’ve been worse if not for your miraculously reappearing dagger,” and he gave the boy a look that was both alarming and humorous.
Tanis dropped his gaze to his hands. “I don’t know how the dagger came back.”
“Indeed,” Pe
las remarked, eyeing him. “Well, I can’t remonstrate you for it too forcefully, seeing as how it saved our lives.”
“Yes, sir,” Tanis said by way of you’re welcome.
Pelas caught the inflection in his tone and chuckled. Then he looked ahead to the marina and his smile broadened. “Ah look, we’re here.”
They turned down one of the smaller jetties and headed toward a sea of bobbing masts. Pelas stopped before a sleek vessel just over thirty paces long with a high mast and a wide beam. He pitched his bag of weapons onto the deck and hopped the distance from quay to boat, immediately tending the lines to be away. At Pelas’s instruction, Tanis unwound the lines from the cleats secured to the quay and then found his way a bit more carefully across the watery chasm, only to then rush around following Pelas’s orders until they were shoving off.
Pelas got the sail up and had them underway quickly, and once they were free of the marina, it was nothing but quiet seas and a steady headwind to keep them cool.
Tanis finally couldn’t stand seeing the man just bleeding all over the place, so while Pelas had the helm, the lad made him strip off his shirt, and he did his best to tend the wound. It was not terribly deep, but it looked gruesome. Tanis bound Pelas’s side with strips cut from his ruined shirt, and then he took what comfort he could in knowing he’d done all that he might for him.
But it left him feeling frayed, both because he honestly cared and because he felt that perhaps he shouldn’t care so much. The feeling was no doubt heightened by having been jostled about the realm like flotsam on a stormy sea, flicked from morning to night to afternoon—Tanis wasn’t sure if he should feel tired because his body thought it was midnight or hungry because they’d missed an important meal.
Feeling generally disgruntled, Tanis settled down on a bench built into the side of the stern. “You know, sir,” he pointed out, hugging knees to chest, “if you saw fit to use the services of a Healer instead of cutting them into little pieces, such a one could’ve mended your side much better than me.”
Pelas cast him a dry grin as he manned the wheel, holding them on their tack. “I didn’t know you cared for me so, little spy.”
“Neither did I,” Tanis muttered.
“Fret thee not.” Pelas glanced once more to the lad. “I am not so different from you. I heal quickly. And I fear a Healer’s craft would be wielded in vain upon me.”
“Why?”
“I’m not like you, little one. Elae doesn’t flow in my veins.”
“How do you know?”
Pelas gave him a strange look.
“I mean, you could be of the fifth, you know.” It had only just occurred to Tanis, but he thought his logic was sound.
Pelas shook his head. “Our power corrupts and destroys. Your frail shells cannot contain it much less channel it without soon deteriorating.”
“That’s not true. Adepts of the fifth can wield it.”
Now Pelas really stared at him. “How do you know such a thing?”
“I know…people—” Tanis dared not name the zanthyr, “fifth-strand Adepts who can work both powers.”
Pelas blinked. “Truly?”
“You know I cannot speak a patent untruth, sir,” Tanis pointed out, “and you’d know if I was holding back or offering only a half-truth.”
Pelas admitted that was so.
“How do you know that you’re not of the fifth?” Tanis persisted. “How do you know that it isn’t possible for you to wield elae? I’m certain that you’ve never tried.”
Pelas looked shocked and…intrigued at the idea. “It would be something to experience, wouldn’t it?” Then he shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and turned to the lad. “Here, little spy. Take the wheel while I tend the sheets.”
Tanis took over at the helm, and Pelas moved around adjusting the ropes that controlled the mainsail and the smaller triangular sail at the bow, called a jib, tightening them with winches so the sails stayed taut in the wind. When he was assured of the sails’ trim and a promise of steady progress, he threw himself down in the stern and extended long legs toward Tanis. The lad reflected that Pelas seemed very at ease on the sailboat, barefoot and bare-chested and with his pant legs rolled up.
He set to braiding two sections of his long black hair, one on each side of his temple, and then joined the two at the back of his head, taking the plait all the way to the end. The braid kept his thick hair pinned in place and out of his eyes, but it also made him look more like a pirate.
“You know,” he remarked as he extended his arms along the side of the boat then, reclining in fair humor, “it is an interesting experience having my own truthreader.”
Tanis cast him a sooty look. “Is it?”
“Indeed.” Pelas looked suddenly quite serious. “I’ve never in my long life held acquaintance with a man I could trust.”
Tanis frowned. “That’s sad, sir.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know, but it’s an interesting truth to note. Yet you changed that, little spy.”
“I did?”
Pelas eyed him quizzically. “I can trust you to tell me the truth, which isn’t to say that I can trust you unequivocally, but in the former, at least, I believe that I can. It’s more than I’ve ever been able to say before.”
Tanis didn’t quite know how to answer him. He was grateful that he needed to keep his attention on their heading, which spared him the necessity of meeting Pelas’s gaze. It wasn’t that he disagreed. He just… “I think…I think we’re becoming friends.” Tanis managed a little smile.
“Friends.” Pelas looked amazed. “There’s a word I never thought I’d use. Friends,” he said again thoughtfully. He lifted copper eyes to Tanis. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible even a week ago. I never thought such a thing was real, but…I believe you’re right.”
“I kind of wish I wasn’t,” Tanis muttered.
Pelas laughed gently at his tone. “No doubt. I am not an easy man to appreciate, as might be required in a friend. That is what this feels like, isn’t it?” he added musingly, truly seeming to grasp the idea as true for him. “There is some kind of bond between us, yet we made no agreement, no contract to fulfill. We aren’t bound together here by quest or command.”
“Does that mean you’d let me leave if I chose to?” Tanis braved.
Pelas frowned. “I…don’t know.” Then he shook his head and frowned harder. “If this is friendship, I suppose I must. How intriguing.” Abruptly he pinned Tanis with a fervent gaze, his manner suddenly alert. “Do you intend to leave?”
“We’re kind of far from land right now,” Tanis pointed out with a grin. “It would be a long swim.”
Assured Tanis wasn’t planning to abandon him in the middle of the ocean, Pelas idly scratched his bare chest with long fingers while he gazed toward the bow and the open sea. “There is merit in this,” he remarked quietly, intently, his brow furrowed from the force of his concentration. “There is merit in this connection, in this experience.” His gaze found Tanis again and lingered upon the boy. “I am strangely drawn to you, little spy.”
Tanis gave him a frightened look.
“Not in the way you are thinking,” Pelas reassured him with a wink. “This is…different. I cannot explain it.”
“Then…” A wave of relief washed across Tanis. “Then you didn’t enchant me like the others?”
“Enchant you? Like what others?”
“But…” Could it be? Could it be that the man was honestly just that charismatic, that he didn’t know truly the effect he had on others?
As Tanis thought carefully on what he knew of Pelas, he realized it could be true. Pelas collected experiences like marbles on a board. He didn’t mean for this pastime to be in any way harmful, though it became so when the darkness took him. Tanis saw Pelas standing at the center of a great wheel, spinning…spinning, gazing wondrously at the vast and varied scenes flashing endlessly by as if they’d been placed there for his sole enjoyment, yet utterly disconnected fro
m every part of it, from life. His ideology, so thoroughly indoctrinated, prevented him from ever actually participating.
It was tragic and infinitely sad. Tanis could only imagine the joy Pelas might actually find in life if he decided to involve himself in the race instead of being a mere spectator intent upon its eventual destruction. If he actually cared…what a force he could be!
Tanis had no doubt his brothers were terrified of him.
Which raised the question…
But before Tanis could ask it, Pelas jumped happily to his feet and pointed. “Look, little spy, there is the point. Round that to windward and we’ll find safe harbor and dinner if we’re lucky.”
They were too busy then for deep conversation, working the lines and the helm to maneuver the ship through the choppy seas of the point. Just beyond, they turned into a cove where high cliffs rose above a sandy beach bordered by coconut palms. Pelas guided them into the cove and dropped anchor while still in deep water, but it was so clear that Tanis could see the sunlight glinting off the sandy bottom.
“How deep do you think that water is, sir?” Tanis asked as he hung over the side of the boat.
Pelas joined him in peering into the crystal-clear depths. “Couple fathoms. Not more than three. You can tell from the color of the water. See there,” and he pointed out to sea where the water darkened. “It’s at least five fathoms where the water alters shades, and beyond that the sea floor falls out from under you very fast.”
Tanis turned to sit back against the side and looked up at him. “How do you know so much about sailing?”
Pelas walked across the boat to gaze at the near cliffs. “I told you,” he said absently, “experiences can be worthwhile.” He spun Tanis an adventurous look. “Do you swim well?”
The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) Page 31
