Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One

by McPhail, Melissa

  He’d watched the sword disintegrate into dust, yet the steel gleamed as true as the day of its forging. Ean swung the weapon, cutting the air with precision, and then placed two fingers under the tang. The sword was better balanced than before. He lifted astonished eyes to the zanthyr. “How could—how did you do this?”

  “You will have need of that sword yet. Much need.”

  They traveled in silence after that, the zanthyr’s comment having sent Ean back to his brooding.

  A zanthyr, by all that’s holy, and a particularly dangerous one from everything Ean had seen. The man was so…impressive. Killing eight men was no easy task, but this creature had done it without gaining so much as a scratch, without a spec of mud upon the trim of his immaculate cloak…without making a sound.

  Staring at his mysterious and silent companion, Ean couldn’t help but wonder how the zanthyr might fare against the Shade and his terrible power, and then he cursed himself for such a thought.

  As the sky was turning a chill purple and mist began rising from the earth, the zanthyr led Ean toward a thicket of oak saplings and dark hawthorn bushes growing in such close proximity that night seemed to remain there, trapped within. The zanthyr dismounted in front of a small gap in the hedge and bid Ean do the same. “We will camp here and rest today,” he said as he looped his reins over a fledgling branch.

  Ean dismounted and looked around, trying to ascertain their location. “Do you know where we are?” He bent to rub down Caldar’s forelegs.

  The zanthyr was also attending to his horse. “Near the duchy of Stradtford.”

  “Stradtford?” Ean all but laughed at him. “You jest, surely! We were just in the Eidenglass.”

  “What’s your point?”

  Ean hunched down in order to view the zanthyr from beneath Caldar’s girth. “It’s impossible to travel all that way—”

  “Nothing is impossible.” The zanthyr sounded irritated.

  Ean didn’t want to argue with him. “Stradtford then. But surely you don’t expect trouble any longer?”

  “They are looking for you, make no mistake of it.” He pinned Ean with a disquieting sort of look. “You have a significant price upon your head, Prince of Dannym. Be glad I am not in need of coin.”

  Ean pressed palms to tired eyes, exhausted by the night’s desperate escape as much as the mystery of his capture. Who? Who is behind this? “Tell me what you know of my kidnappers,” he said thickly, dropping his hands again, “and I will see you rewarded for it. My father will be most interested to know the identity of those plotting against the throne.”

  The zanthyr looked Ean up and down with a critical eye. “This is no mere plot against a throne, Prince of Dannym. Be forewarned: Cephrael’s Hand glows in the heavens. The cosmic Balance is once again shifting, and only the condemned may defeat the forbidden.”

  Ean glared at him in exasperation. “What does that even mean?”

  The zanthyr knelt to draw something in the dirt and then stood and announced, “Let’s go in. Morning nears.” With that, he disappeared into the thicket.

  A groan escaped as Ean pushed to his feet. He was beginning to feel truly ragged—not just physically but mentally as well. He bore the burden of avenging Creighton’s death, but to do so properly, he had to understand the forces in play. Unfortunately, every word out of the zanthyr’s mouth only left him more confused. To top it all, he was constantly fighting back the wrenching ache of loss. Creighton’s death was always right there, lurking beneath the surface of his thoughts, waiting for any opening to strike him with waves of crippling sorrow.

  Ean gave Caldar one last loving stroke and ducked to enter the thicket, but the zanthyr’s drawing stopped him. It was an intricate, looping pattern scribed in the bare earth, and something about it caught and held his attention…

  A rough hand grabbed him and pulled him through the bushes. He barely noticed falling on hands and knees. After a moment, he shook his head to clear his gaze and looked over at the zanthyr. “What…what happened?”

  “It’s a mindtrap. Don’t look at it.”

  Ean shook his head again, surprised by how fast his thoughts had gone far astray. “A mindtrap,” he repeated, never having heard of such a thing but understanding now of its power. He thought about how easily he could’ve been stuck staring at the pattern for hours and cast the zanthyr a sour look. “Nice of you to warn me.”

  “I just did.”

  Frowning at the creature, Ean scrubbed at his growth of beard—it really itched—and looked around the tiny grove. Apparently, while he’d been caught on the mindtrap, the zanthyr had cleared a small space and dug a fire pit lined with stones so that the glow of the flames might not be seen.

  Now the man was choosing a spot to spread his cloak. “There are deadly forces about,” he said without turning from his task. “The mindtrap will keep them at bay while we sleep.”

  Ean nodded in understanding. “The Shade, you mean.”

  The zanthyr cast him a narrow look. “Shades are not the greatest threat to you. They serve the Fifth Vestal and thrive in his shadow.”

  “The Fifth Vestal.” Ean blinked. The title came out of legend, though to be sure the man had once lived.

  The Vestals were revered by all. Ean had only ever met one of them—the Fourth Vestal, Raine D’Lacourte, perhaps the most famous Truthreader ever to walk the realm. Ean knew all their names, though he was no Adept himself to care for such governors. Yet the Vestals held an almost divine authority over Adepts and kings alike, for they served and protected the entire realm of Alorin and were bound to this duty with an incorruptible oath.

  Or so everyone had believed, before Björn van Gelderan, the Fifth Vestal, had betrayed his oath at the height of the Adept wars. Now his name was spoken only in stories, and only as the duplicitous villain he’d proven to be.

  Had the Vestal been referenced by anyone else, Ean would’ve laughed it off, but this was a zanthyr who spoke to him, one of the oldest of races; his very nature gave credence to his words. “You speak of Björn van Gelderan?” Ean said, feeling ridiculous just saying the man’s name. “You’re saying that…what? That Björn van Gelderan has returned to Alorin from…well, from wherever he’s been for three hundred years?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  The zanthyr frowned disapprovingly at him.

  Ean gave him a withering look in return, but he tried to piece things together all the same, lest the man refuse to answer any more questions. “So the…Fifth Vestal is behind the Shade’s appearance, but…” and here he hesitated, quickly thinking through what he’d been told. “But someone else is searching for us,” and here his tone grew sardonic, “and they’re somehow more dangerous than the worst traitor Alorin has ever known or his army of inhuman drones that work the blackest magic and command man-eating hounds conjured out of thin air?”

  “No, my prince.” The zanthyr pinned his unnerving emerald gaze upon Ean. “They’re not searching for us. They’re searching for you.”

  Ean barked a laugh, but his expression quickly sobered again. “You’re serious.”

  “As the sun sets west.”

  Dumbfounded, Ean stared at the man. After a moment, he concluded, “You’re not going to tell me anything more, are you.” It wasn’t really a question, so he didn’t really expect an answer. In that, he wasn’t disappointed. “So the mindtrap will protect me today. What of tomorrow?” What of when I’m home in Calgaryn? What of the rest of my life?

  “Tomorrow is a new day. Rest now. At twilight, we ride.” With that, the zanthyr lay back upon his cloak, draped a leather-clad arm over his eyes, and did not stir.

  Ean fell onto his back with a ragged sigh and pushed his arm over his eyes, mirroring the zanthyr’s position. He expected to lie there for hours tormenting over all the things he didn’t understand, but instead he fell fast asleep.

  That evening, as Ean was saddling Caldar in preparation for resuming their travels, his eyes kept straying t
oward the mysterious pattern called a mindtrap—though he was careful this time not to look directly upon it. He’d always wanted to better understand the wielder’s art of Patterning.

  ‘All things are formed of patterns,’ his mother had explained to him once. Though she was but a novice historian of the Adept Art, she knew more than most. ‘Like the intricate lacework of a snowflake, or the infinitely complex veins that form a single leaf. One can learn to see these patterns and recreate them using elae. Only when a student has mastered the pattern of a thing can he then control or compel that thing. Only then does he embark upon a wielder’s path.’

  Frowning as he adjusted his stirrup, Ean asked the zanthyr, “Is that a wielder’s pattern or an Adept’s pattern?”

  The zanthyr was holding his midnight stallion’s head in both hands and staring into the horse’s eyes as if somehow communicating with him. He did not turn from his odd task as he answered, “It is simply a pattern.”

  Ean wandered over to it. “But don’t Adepts and wielders work patterns—work elae—in different ways?”

  “Yes.”

  Ean braved a direct glance at the looping design, but finding no mental pull in the doing that time, he allowed himself to look at it more closely. The zanthyr must have done something to it, for it seemed nothing more now than a pattern in the dirt. While studying the intricate design, he tried to puzzle out the hidden meaning that he suspected lay behind the zanthyr’s laconic yes. “So Adepts and wielders work elae differently,” he posed, “yet they use the same patterns?”

  “It is not so simple as that, my prince.”

  Ean frowned at him. Then he turned back and frowned at the pattern. If all it took to be a wielder was a mastery of Patterning, then he imagined he could be a wielder too. He had a knack for patterns—had he not chosen an equally intricate design for his own personal seal? The zanthyr’s pattern didn’t look that difficult to remember, and Ean expected he could draw it as well as any man.

  Suddenly the zanthyr was right beside him, speaking low into his ear, “Thinking of trying your hand at the Art?”

  Ean started. He turned the man a peevish glare over his shoulder. “It doesn’t look that hard.”

  “You think not?” The zanthyr cast him a shadowy smile. “Study it as long as you like then. Memorize it.”

  Ean was keen to the challenge. While the zanthyr finished readying for their departure, Ean studied the looping design. It’s not too different from a number of scripted L’s strung together in a circle, he decided, trying to find something it might remind him of. He sent his mind whirling through the loops as if trying to memorize the steps of a court dance. Right loop, right loop, left loop, down loop, right loop…on and on.

  “Ready?”

  Ean blinked and looked around. The horses were saddled, and all evidence of their stay had been erased. How long had he been staring at the damned thing again? “Yes,” he answered after a moment. He thought he was.

  The zanthyr gave him a fiendish grin and swept his boot across the dirt, erasing the pattern.

  Ean knelt to redraw it, and—

  “Gone!” he exclaimed, sitting back on his heels in surprise. “It’s gone!”

  The zanthyr was still grinning at him. “So you noticed.”

  “No, I mean in my head! I can’t—”

  “No,” the zanthyr finished for him. “You can’t. You are not a wielder, Ean val Lorian.” He turned and walked back to his horse.

  “But…” Frustrated, Ean jumped to his feet and followed him. He couldn’t tell if his aggravation was with himself or the other man. “So, what…? A wielder could’ve remembered?”

  The zanthyr mounted his horse with the same graceful ease with which he seemed to do everything. “A wielder first learns to accurately recall the pattern,” he replied as he took up his reins. “Then he learns to draw it. Finally, he must learn to create it substantively with his mind alone.”

  Ean swung up into his saddle as he considered that. “So what is an Adept?” All he knew was that an Adept was born with the talent to work one of the five strands of elae, whereas a wielder had to learn Patterning to do it.

  “An Adept forms the pattern with his mind, only he does it innately as he wills the strand that governs his power to do his bidding. He does not envision the pattern, nor does he mentally draw it, yet the pattern is there when he works elae, for the pattern is the way he thinks. The patterns that enable his magic are so ingrained in the fiber of his being that he works them with as little thought as breathing.”

  “An Adept thinks in patterns,” Ean concluded. It was impressive, he had to admit.

  Taking reins in hand, he sent a curious look toward the zanthyr. “So what are you?”

  The zanthyr flashed a grin and spun his horse to the north.

  A drizzly morning greeted them as they reached the southernmost boundaries of Gandrel Forest and began looking for a place of shelter. Ean had finally admitted that they were where the zanthyr claimed, though he still couldn’t fathom covering as much ground as they had on that first night. But the Gandrel was familiar to him, as was the line of distant mountains demarking the coastline. He could no longer doubt that they neared Calgaryn.

  The Gandrel looked forbidding as they approached, its usual beauty subdued beneath angry grey skies, and as they passed within the sheltering trees, night fell again. If Ean turned and looked beyond the tree line, he could see the gradual brightening of the grey morning, but within, it remained dark and silent, as if the forest was sleeping late.

  After walking the horses for the better part of an hour, the zanthyr finally dismounted and set up camp beneath the low-bowing branches of an ancient balsam fir. Soon thereafter, they laid down to rest, and as before, Ean was falling asleep even before his head touched his arm.

  He woke at twilight to the smell of rabbit roasting. Sitting up with a yawn and a stretch of sore muscles, he found the zanthyr sitting cross-legged beside a low fire. A skinned rabbit hung from three crossed hickory limbs—green, so they wouldn’t catch the flame—and wispy tendrils of smoke from the fire funneled up the tree trunk to dissipate among the higher branches. Ean heard rain falling beyond their tent of fir limbs, but either the broad tree or some spell of the zanthyr’s kept them dry.

  As Ean pulled a water flagon from his pack, he watched the zanthyr remove the rabbit from the spit and slice into the breast with one of his dark knives. He placed the meat on a cleaned strip of bark and handed it to Ean, who thanked him.

  While Ean ate, the zanthyr settled back on one elbow and rubbed his thumb along the dagger he held. It was a cold looking weapon, with both blade and hilt fashioned of a singular black stone that Ean couldn’t place. One of their enchanted blades, no doubt—Merdanti weapons. At least that legend is true.

  The dagger was polished smooth, yet the stone cast no shine; rather, it seemed to absorb the firelight into its core. Seeing it reminded Ean of his own blade, and the mystery surrounding its repair. “Might I ask a question of you?”

  The zanthyr glanced up between the spill of his raven hair. “You may,” he granted with a shadowy smile, “though I may not answer it.”

  “It’s my sword,” the prince posed. “You wielded elae to mend it, but everything I’ve learned about the lifeforce denies such workings. My understanding is that elae can be compelled to alter the forces of life, but none can command it to alter the state of inanimate objects.” Ean stopped and gazed at the zanthyr. “But you did.”

  Though the zanthyr’s expression showed no change, yet Ean sensed that he was amused. “Yes,” he confirmed as he cleaned his dagger on a corner of his cloak, “I did.”

  “And how is that possible?”

  The zanthyr considered him carefully before replying. “In my day, there were a great many wielders who commanded the fifth strand of elae, that elemental strand called Elorindael by my race. The fifth is the most powerful of the five strands, for it compels the elements themselves.”

  Ean nodded; it
was as he’d suspected. He pinned the zanthyr with his own level gaze. “I knew this. I just didn’t think there was anyone alive who could work the infamous fifth strand.”

  The zanthyr cast him an elusive sort of smile. “There are a few,” he returned. “The Agasi wielder Markal Morrelaine is one, if he lives. Marius di L'Arlesé of Agasan is known to work it as well, as are…others. Malachai ap’Kalien was a fifth strand Adept—he had to be, to do…what he did. And of course, there is the Fifth Vestal,” he added with an off-handed wave of his dagger.

  “Björn van Gelderan,” Ean murmured, feeling strangely uneasy about speaking the man’s name aloud, though for no reason he could put his finger on. It wasn’t as if Ean expected the wielder to appear at the mere mention of his name. Still, the zanthyr claimed the man had returned to Alorin along with his Shades. Who knew what he could do?

  Chewing quietly on his meal, Ean frowned over what he’d learned. History taught that Björn van Gelderan had betrayed his revered position as one of the five Vestals chosen to protect the realm, so the prince was puzzled to hear the zanthyr name him by that title still. “Tell me, how can Björn van Gelderan remain a Vestal after all he’s done?”

  “All he’s done…” The zanthyr repeated slowly, looking up beneath his wavy dark hair with a narrowed gaze. “What do you mean by that?”

  Ean missed the dangerous shift in the zanthyr’s tone. “It was the Fifth Vestal’s duty, and that of the other four Vestals, to protect our realm from the misuse of elae, was it not?”

  “It was and is.”

  “So what do you call the Adept Wars, and the treasonous role Björn played? He took up Malachai ap’Kalien’s banner and waged war on his own race. His betrayal was the worst of all, they say.”

  “They…say,” the zanthyr repeated slowly, his dagger suddenly still in his hand. “What do they know of the Adept Wars?”

  Ean’s eyes flew to his in startled response, sorely aware that he now trod on dangerous ground.