“Rad nath, First Lord,” Ean murmured obediently, eyes downcast. It was an unexpected response—the phrase had just come to him.
But Björn seemed pleased by the expression. He nodded farewell, and a moment later, Ean found himself standing alone.
The moment reminded him unhappily of a similar parting, the one in his dream, where a battle had raged and good men had died, where he’d carried a blood-drenched Merdanti sword and said goodbye to the First Lord on the broken stones of a shattered dome. He knew now that this battle had taken place in the Citadel on Tiern’aval, where Arion was thought to have died.
Then, as now, Ean-Arion had been surrounded by friends who would’ve given their lives for him; but then, as potentially now, it was Ean’s life that was forfeit to Fate’s whim.
Death’s path might be walked by all men, but never more than one man at a time.
Ean felt a strange duality in this recognition, a renewed connection to the person he’d once been. Ever had he walked with an army of the truest friends at his back, and ever had he walked alone.
***
Björn returned to the room in silence, his expression unreadable, and a few minutes later, Ean arrived. Raine saw sadness and determination both reflected in the prince’s gaze.
“I will go after them,” Ean announced to the room at large.
“Then you’d best go at once,” Ramu advised, “for surprise will be in your favor.”
Dagmar agreed. “They won’t be anticipating you for another many days—no doubt the villains expected it would take that long for their ill-begotten missive to find its way to you.”
Isabel went over to Ean and kissed his cheek. She murmured something in his ear, and he nodded, but his expression grew even more tormented than before. “Go and prepare,” she said quietly. “I will join you soon.”
Looking gravely conflicted, Ean glanced to the others by way of farewell and departed.
When the prince was gone, Raine murmured through a frown, “I should go with him.”
Isabel turned him a grateful smile. “And you would serve my true love well,” she replied, “but my brother needs you here, Raine.”
Your talents will be needed elsewhere, friend of my heart…
Raine couldn’t tell if she’d given him the thought or if he’d plucked it from her consciousness—in any case, she’d wanted him to hear it.
“I gather you intend to follow Ean into the fray, dear sister,” Björn said drily, but concern clouded his gaze.
She looked back to him. “Unless you have someone more qualified in mind,” and she arched one delicate eyebrow in inquiry.
Björn stood and took her by the shoulders. “None,” he whispered and kissed her upon the forehead. But he did not release her. Instead, he looked into her blindfolded eyes, exhaled a sigh and shook his head. “So long as you are clear where the line between Isabel and Epiphany’s Prophet is drawn, sister of my heart.”
“As certain as you are on the boundaries of Balance, dear brother,” she returned with a tart little smile.
Björn gave her another kiss and released her.
“Isabel, I confess I am troubled by what else to divulge to Ean,” Ramu admitted as Björn was retaking his chair. “He just missed hearing my earlier report of Trell, but I vow he will not well receive the news that his brother and companions both are in dire peril.”
“You mean you think he’ll try to save them all,” Raine amended.
Ramu turned him a telling look that confirmed this had been his thought exactly.
“Trell walks upon his path,” Isabel answered Ramu. “It is too soon for his path to cross Ean’s.”
Ramu nodded at this.
“I will go now to help him prepare,” Isabel announced. “Might you join us in our departure, Ramu? There is much of your knowledge Ean would benefit from.”
The Lord of the Heavens bowed deeply. “I would desire nothing else, my lady.”
She nodded gratefully and took her leave.
When Isabel was gone, and all in the room seemed diminished for want of her, the rain started again, rubbing salt in the wound of her departure. Dämen observed then, “First Lord…I mislike this course of action.”
“And I as well, Dämen,” the First Lord agreed. He sat slouched in his chair with chin resting in hand. “But you must argue with my sister upon the matter. It was clear from the moment of her arrival here tonight that their departure was imminent.”
The Shade seemed not to take his point or else to ignore it. “Ean has just been returned to you, ma dieul, and yet he now heads into an obvious trap employed by a wielder in the service of the Prophet Bethamin. What reassurance have we that ‘tis not your enemies behind this venture, who even now plot his end?”
“If that is his path, Dämen, he must walk it,” Ramu returned in blunt censure.
“It is his choice to go, Dämen,” Björn pointed out more gently. “We are neither his masters nor his jailers—I would that you kept this in mind.”
“But a mere word from you would change his mind, ma dieul,” the Shade urged.
Thunder sounded close, rattling the windowpanes. Raine thought it a fitting accompaniment to the general mood in the room. Björn shifted in his chair and rested chin in hand, frowning at his Lord of Shades. “We’ve presented Ean’s path to him twice before, Dämen, and you saw where that took us. The farther we tried to influence him, the deeper he sank into the rut of past mistakes. Should we allow Ean to forge his own path, perhaps he won’t be bound by the same pattern of error.”
“It is a grave risk you take, First Lord,” Dämen grumbled.
“Is it?” Björn glanced to Raine before settling his gaze back upon the Shade. “Or is it application of the Fifth Law? A wielder is limited by what he can envision. If the path is dictated to Ean by another, then he’s restricted by their knowledge, foreknowledge, or lack thereof. Yet were we to leave the path open before him—not showing him the way, merely giving him a light by which to see…then Dämen,” and here Björn’s eyes grew bright with possibility, “then, left entirely to his own devices, protected by no one, bound to nothing but his conviction…then when necessity calls, might Ean make a different choice which would otherwise be against his nature? A new choice. One they do not expect? Balance, Dämen,” Björn concluded. “It is ever our guide.”
Björn rose and walked to the doors, and his gaze drew their collective attention to the storm, which raged once more as if it had never broken. “Of all the paths that spread before us,” the First Lord observed then, “Ean’s pulls him inexorably forth. He is as bound to it as he is to my sister, and she to him.” Glancing over his shoulder at the rest of them, Björn admitted, “I have often wondered if theirs was not somehow the same path.”
“I have wondered that as well, First Lord,” Ramu confessed. He bowed then, and his gaze gave farewell to all as he murmured, “If you will permit me, I shall join them as they depart.”
Björn nodded quietly, and the drachwyr left them.
“And I must prepare the node,” Dagmar observed, adding with a nod of farewell, “Brothers.”
As Dagmar was leaving, the Shade bowed deeply, as if burdened by the weight of his contrition. “Your pardon, First Lord, I will depart to my tasks.”
Raine wasn’t sure exactly what the creature was apologizing for, but Björn seemed to understand. “Influence, not interference, my friend. It is the most we can do.”
“Rad nath, ma dieul,” intoned the Shade. His form faded until only the memory of it remained.
“And what of your thoughts, brother?” Björn inquired then, turning his gaze upon Raine.
The truthreader looked to where his oath-brother stood before the tall windows, framed by the storm raging in the world he made. There was a grave beauty to Björn van Gelderan in any temperament, but especially when he smiled, as he was doing just then.
Still marveling on the unreality of his current existence, Raine shrugged. “Isabel has chosen to go with Ea
n. Whatever the reasons behind her choice, I trust her decisions.” Then he added with a wry smile, “Truly, I think I would rather face down the Malorin’athgul than cross your sister once she’s made up her mind about the path she intends to follow.”
“Wise, Raine,” Björn murmured. He turned to look back out at the storm. “Very wise indeed.”
Fifty-Six
“To him who is determined, it remains only to act.”
- Ramuhárikhamáth, Lord of the Heavens
Ean frowned into the rain. The storm seemed a mirror of his mood, of his very temperament: turbulent and brooding, violent, reckless, haphazardly attacking the world; making up for what it lacked in strategy by the force of its determined effort.
“Come, Ean.” Isabel called him away from the window and held up the last of his garments to be donned ere their departure.
He joined her in front of a long standing mirror, whereupon she helped him into a heavy suede vest lined in fleece and then fastened on his baldric and belt. Ean realized just how long it had been since he felt the familiar weight of his sword at his hip. He hadn’t exactly missed it—he certainly hadn’t needed it in T’khendar, only wishing he’d had it a time or two that he might’ve used it to beat Markal.
Yet seeing the sword at his side again brought thoughts of the zanthyr, and the recognition that, like Isabel’s staff, Phaedor had constructed this sword especially for him.
Looking at the baldric in the mirror, at his father’s sigil so vividly embossed in the leather, Ean felt a pang of regret. It seemed a different man’s accoutrement suddenly…another man’s life.
Isabel settled his navy cloak upon his shoulders and fastened the elaborate clasp. “There,” she said, smiling up at him. “You look yourself again.”
Ean gazed past her to take in his reflection. Cinnamon hair fell across grey eyes, and longer strands framed a lean jaw shaded with scruff. The charcoal clothes he wore were not the garments of a prince, but the blade he carried was. “Do I?” he asked as he stared into his own eyes. “I’m not sure I even know what that means.”
“Simple words,” she replied with a knowing smile. “You make them too complex.”
Ean shook his head. He’d thought for certain that piercing the veil and regaining Arion’s memories—even partially—would’ve restored some sense of self, that he would now become this other person who was bold and defiant and calmly confident of his power. Instead, he felt just as confused as ever about who he really was and what he should do. The only thing that seemed to have grown more certain was his potential to harm those he loved.
“Isabel,” he murmured miserably, staring at their combined reflection, which seemed suddenly the only thing that wasn’t spinning in a whirlwind of guilt, “how can you know me so completely when I barely know myself?”
“I have the benefit of never having lost my memory, my lord.”
He turned to her and took her hand. “You torment me,” he breathed, closing his eyes and pressing lips to her captured palm. “Today of all days, I cannot bear it.”
She let him have her hand. “But do you not know me equally, my lord?” she posed in reply, her mouth teasing his tormented gaze with a smile suggestive of all they’d shared. “Did not your soul know mine in the first moment of reunion?”
“Yes,” he admitted, because it was true.
“Would you deny our history, the recognition that we feel in each other?”
“No. Never.”
She slipped her hand free of his and placed it upon his cheek instead. “You put too much importance on the man that you once were and not enough on the one you are becoming.” She gave him a kiss then and slid her fingers beneath his chin as she turned away, inviting him to follow her out of their apartments.
Their things had already been taken in preparation for departure, and now Isabel led Ean to the Nodes. That Isabel accompanied him both comforted and disturbed him, for while he could not conceive of walking his path without her, still, he would be constantly concerned for her safety.
Down the endless hallway, they slipped through a door that looked like all the others and emerged into an open meadow. Judging from the long grass damp with rain, Ean assumed the storm had already passed through this part of the world. Now a moon just shy of full bathed them in alternating shadow, shining intermittently through a clearing sky to illuminate a wide meadow.
Where the Lord of the Heavens awaited.
“Ean,” Ramu greeted as they approached, “knowing how you struggle with memory, I would share with you some of my experience in battling wielders of the Fourth Age. If you would hear it.”
“I welcome your advice, my lord,” Ean returned. While he’d regained much with Markal that afternoon, still he knew he had literal ages yet to reclaim of Arion Tavestra’s knowledge, and anticipating the conflict to come was making him tense and edgy. He took Isabel’s hand in his for some small comfort as the three of them walked through the meadow.
Ramu began, “Always search for patterns before advancing,” and thereafter embarked upon what became a litany of vital cautions so exhaustive that Ean was soon struggling to remember them all. “Keep your thoughts warded at all times. Do not use elae when the strength of men will suffice. Never let yourself fall beneath a compulsion pattern. Always keep the lifeforce within your grasp. Stay guarded against the Labyrinth…”
As Ramu rattled off the ever-lengthening list, Ean felt each as a painful echo of his past mistakes.
“I need likely not remind you to never use the fifth when the fourth will suffice,” Ramu said as they neared the crest of the hill they’d been climbing, “for when you wage the fifth in combat, you walk the knife-edge of Balance over an abyss from which there is no return.” His dark gaze was compelling as he added, “Make no mistake, Ean—no manner of craft will save you from this abyss should you falter.”
Ean felt this truth too nearly, believing he had violated it more than once to grave and wretched consequence.
“If you do intend to work the fifth,” Isabel noted from his other side, “you must be alert to patterns within patterns, for wielders who cannot work the fifth are ever wary of those who can.”
“Just so,” Ramu agreed. “Fourth Age wielders especially developed all manner of traps to ensnare a fifth-strand Adept or any wielder who dared attempt use the fifth in combat.”
Ean turned him a puzzled look. “Do we know this wielder cannot use the fifth?”
“If he could, he no doubt would’ve used it against Rhakar,” Ramu replied, “and their reasonably amicable encounter would’ve ended differently.”
Ean frowned at him. “But if Rhakar was there, why didn’t…” The question hung unspoken, for he realized even in the asking that it would go unanswered. Whatever role the drachwyr played in the First Lord’s game, it didn’t involve saving Ean’s friends.
The whole situation reeked of wrongness.
Why were they letting him walk off into an obvious trap unaided? How did they expect him to succeed without help? Too well he remembered his promise to hunt down the Shade who he believed had slain Creighton…how he’d threatened to take on the Fifth Vestal all on his own! It was testimony to Raine’s forbearance that he hadn’t laughed that brash young prince from the room. Yet here now Björn was sending him off to pursue an equally outlandish and uncertain course, with consequences just as devastating.
Events seemed to be spinning out of his control. He would’ve like to have had Rhakar’s blade at his side.
They rounded the hilltop and came in view of two men standing beside a pair of horses, one dark, the other silver-pale in the moonlight. Ean’s heart did a little jump upon recognizing the horse’s silhouette.
“Caldar?” He released Isabel’s hand and jogged across the meadow to greet his proud stallion, who neighed and tossed his head as Ean neared. The prince slipped an arm around the stallion’s neck and stroked his nose, murmuring astonished hellos, so overwhelmed to see his treasured horse in such an unlikely pl
ace.
Eventually he recalled himself and turned to the two men who were waiting with the horses—Dagmar and Franco Rohre.
“Ean,” the Second Vestal said warmly then, “I see you found an old friend.”
Ean looked at him in open wonder while he rubbed the stallion’s nose. “Is this your work, my lord?” He spared a glance for Isabel, who was coming up beside him, and reached for her hand.
“Sadly, I had little part in this happy reunion—only to bring your mounts from the stables.”
Isabel placed her hand on Caldar’s nose in silent greeting and observed quietly as she did, “You will surely know the source of Caldar’s presence here if you but think upon it, Ean.”
Indeed, it was the work of a bare moment to conclude the only possible who, though it brought no understanding of how. Exhaling a perplexed sigh, Ean shook his head and noted to no one in particular, “He never ceases to bewilder, does he?” He didn’t think he would ever understand the depths of Phaedor’s foresight.
Isabel blessed him with a smile by way of understanding. Then she gave her attention to Dagmar. “We are ready.”
“As are we, my lady. Franco has completed the work. It was good practice before tackling the Sylus node, I dare say, and well done.”
Franco grimaced, but he managed a muttered, “Thank you, my lord.”
“What work is this?” Ean asked.
“Rerouting a node between the realms,” Dagmar said with a broad smile of approval.
Ean arched brows at Franco. “You can do such a thing?”
When Franco merely grimaced in answer, Dagmar chuckled and clapped the Espial on this back, offering on his behalf, “Tis neither a task to be undertaken lightly nor by the faint of heart.”
“Would that mine had been less stalwart,” Franco lamented. “I might’ve avoided the assignment altogether for fear of my heart stopping permanently.”
Isabel turned her blindfolded gaze to the Espial. “None have proven more capable or faithful, Franco. Do not doubt yourself so.”
The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light) Page 82
