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

by McPhail, Melissa

  She bent over Ean to examine his shoulder then, concentrating all her effort on understanding what that pattern was meant to do… “It’s…was it…it’s containing something?”

  “Well deduced, Your Grace.”

  She looked up abruptly. “Was it poison on the blade?” Then she stared at him. “You know a pattern to counter the effects of poison?”

  “So it would seem.”

  Alyneri tried to contain her amazement by turning her attention back to her charge, but her heart was fluttering. To think that such can be done! “And where did this happen?”

  “Near Stradtford.”

  She straightened and leveled him a stern look. “Do not lie to me, milord. Stradtford is two days’ ride from Aracine.” She arched a brow at him. “Now the truth. Where did this happen?”

  The zanthyr grinned again. “In the Gandrel on the northern border of Stradtford.”

  Alyneri narrowed her eyes at him. “So that’s your story and you’re sticking to it. At least you’re consistent.” She returned to her study of Ean’s wound. “So who is he?” she asked without looking up.

  “No one of import.”

  “No one of import,” she repeated dubiously, “yet a zanthyr works a pattern to save his life and personally brings him to my door. Do you think me a fool? What’s your business with this man?”

  The zanthyr responded with an almost feral grin, his voice so deep it was almost a purr. “My business with him is my own business.”

  Alyneri arched a brow at him. “Typical. Well then,” and she settled him an icy look, “be on your way. No doubt you’ll want to be getting back to your ‘own business’.”

  The zanthyr gave her a polite nod. “Until we meet again, Your Grace,” he said. Then he simply vanished.

  Alyneri let out a little shriek and jumped back two paces, grabbing hold of the edge of the examining table. She shot an affronted glare at the empty space where the zanthyr last stood.

  At that moment, Tanis came running in. “Your Grace, is everything all right? I thought I heard a scream.”

  Alyneri turned with an exasperated look but quickly recovered her composure. “Everything’s fine. I just put a kettle on the fire in the kitchen. Bring that and a basin for washing. I’ll also need the siphon,” she added crisply, counting off on her fingers, “the spice bowl and crusher, one of the bigger ceramic goblets, cheesecloth for his tea, and don’t forget the scissors this time.” She glanced over at him to make sure he understood. Her eyes had taken on a purposeful, determined look. “Any questions?”

  Tanis shook his head. With a tilt of her head, she indicated the door.

  He bolted for it.

  “Bring the water first!” she called after him.

  Alyneri turned back to the mystery man and frowned at the dark wound on his shoulder, the skin of which was badly inflamed.

  Impossible that they traveled so far in one day, she brooded while she stared at Ean’s shoulder, eyes and mind both probing the wound. Then she caught her lower lip between her teeth and shelved the problem for later. Who could say for certain what a zanthyr could or couldn’t do? The only thing anybody really knew about the creatures was that they were utterly insufferable. Abruptly, she turned to the door, calling, “Shadow take me, Tanis! Where’s that water?”

  On cue, Tanis rushed back into the room with the kettle in his right hand and a multitude of items cupped in the circle of his left arm. He set everything on her work bench and then rushed back out of the room.

  Alyneri cleaned the man’s wound and followed with the rest of him, all the while wondering who he was. He had the calloused hands of a sailor—could he have been shipwrecked? It would certainly explain all the dirt; the man was practically bleeding mud. His teeth and gums were too good to be those of a sailor’s, though, and while his nails were shredded, his toes in contrast were nicely trimmed. It was hard to tell his age with the beard and unkempt hair, but he still had the hairless—if well-muscled—chest of relative youth. Alyneri thought he was not much older than her. Twenty at most. The funny thing was that he looked so familiar. His face was fairly hidden under his unruly beard, but she couldn’t help wondering where she might’ve seen him before.

  When she’d finished, her charge was measurably cleaner, but she was no closer to answering who he was or what possible interest a zanthyr could have with him. Finally, she shook out her wrists and placed her fingers to either side of the man’s head, closing her eyes.

  When she put her hands upon a man, she could see what some called his aura, his energy, that which was peculiarly him. It was within the aura that a Healer found each individual’s personal pattern, a pattern which, theoretically, should it be unworked, would cause the very man to cease to exist.

  All things are composed of patterns…It was the first rule any Adept was taught; whether or not they ever learned to manipulate patterns outside of their own strand, the fundamentals were the same. All things are composed of patterns, Alyneri repeated the phrase to herself, and continued on with the Healer’s axiom…and every life pattern is unique.

  In order to heal a man, she must first find his own pattern. This she knew, yet she’d been trying for several minutes now to isolate this man’s pattern from among the rushing river that was his lifeforce. But she could find nothing. The only pattern she kept coming upon was the zanthyr’s.

  Impossible! It has to be there—he’s alive, isn’t he?

  She looked again, more broadly this time…letting her awareness perceive him wholly, and saw…she saw…

  In the same moment that she found his pattern and heaved a sigh of relief, she was also confronted with an incredible discovery. This man’s pattern wasn’t contained within his energy, it was his energy.

  His pattern isn’t a current within the river, it is the river.

  “Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees,” she muttered.

  Alyneri had never encountered anything like this before. In effect, she’d been looking for something small, when the truth was magnificent in scope. It was a startling discovery.

  Perhaps this has something to do with the zanthyr’s interest in him?

  Her mother had never mentioned such a possibility to her, and knowing her mother, that meant the Lady Melisande had never happened upon such a thing in all her long career—nor her mother before. Nor likely Alyneri’s great-grandmother, for such was the method of teaching that the mother-healer taught her daughter everything she knew.

  Three generations, and none of them ever healed a man whose pattern was his energy.

  What could it mean?

  Having no answer immediately apparent, Alyneri returned to her task and began repairing the torn threads of the man’s life pattern. It was arduous and time-consuming, for each thread must be matched to its appropriate end else the pattern be reconstructed incorrectly and the man die as a result.

  It was nearing dusk before she finally withdrew her perception from the man’s energy and opened her eyes. Sometime during her work, Tanis had come in to light the lamps and bring her supper; it rested untouched upon her workbench. Looking back to her charge, Alyneri was pleased with her work.

  The man looked much better, and she knew by tomorrow his wound would be nearly healed. Now that the threat to him had passed and she could turn her mind elsewhere, however, something nagged at her. Two things, actually. First, the unusual pattern that was this man’s life signature; and second, the wielder’s pattern which the zanthyr had used to seal out the poison.

  Unheard of! Yet so exciting to think it could be done. By Epiphany’s Grace—to have that kind of skill…to be able to both heal and manipulate the currents to assist in one’s Healing!

  It was a lifelong dream, but never more than a dream. Since the destruction of the Citadel on the island of Tiern’aval, there were few centers of Adept learning. The Kingdom of Veneisea supported the Commune at Jeune, though the Adepts there were mostly focused on scholarly learning rather than application of the Art. Al
yneri longed to study Patterning at the Sormitáge in Agasan, but so long as she was commissioned to House val Lorian, and so long as House val Lorian was supporting the war in M’Nador by sending every available kingdom Healer to the front lines, she knew she would not be allowed to leave court.

  I just want to travel as my mother did…she lamented, catching her lower lip between her teeth and pushing back old feelings of angst and loss. To see the world, and learn, and help where I can.

  There was always the chance that the Nadori war with the Akkad would end, the kingdom’s healers would return to court, and Alyneri would be released of her commission.

  There was always a chance that pigs would be born with feathers, too.

  Tanis came in and stood behind her, and Alyneri quickly brushed a tear from one eye lest the boy see her crying and start asking questions with that Truthreader’s voice he’d been working so diligently on. If only he put half as much effort into keeping her herbs stocked…

  “Have you any idea who he is, my lady?” the lad finally asked.

  Alyneri shook her head as she gazed at the man, but her eyes narrowed as she thought again, There’s something so familiar about him! If only she could figure out why she thought she knew him. Then again, men with shaggy hair and unkempt beards all tended to look alike to her. “It's puzzling, isn’t it, Tanis?” she asked. “He comes wearing neither jacket nor coat of arms, nothing to proclaim his station. I thought at first that he might be a sailor, but if he is, he’s not spent too many years at sea. Besides, that zanthyr insists they came up from the south.”

  Tanis stared at her. “That man was a zanthyr?” He pushed a hand through his ash-blonde hair and scrunched up his comely face as he wondered aloud, “Is that why Farshideh was so upset to see him?”

  Alyneri turned him a curious look. “What are you talking about?”

  “Farshideh nearly fainted when that man came up from the gardens.”

  Alyneri frowned. “That’s odd.” I’ll have to ask her about that. “Maybe he owes the zanthyr money,” she offered then, returning her attention to her charge. “Why else would a zanthyr try to help a man, save for personal gain?”

  “Maybe,” Tanis said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “You should’ve seen their horses, Your Grace. The zanthyr rode the biggest stallion I’ve ever seen, and this man rides—well, I assume he rides the Hallovian Grey.”

  “A Hallovian Grey?” Alyneri caught her lip between her teeth. That ruled out a few theories right there. No man who could afford a noble steed would owe a zanthyr coin—at least, she hoped not. “Oh, well…when he wakes, I suppose we can ask him and the mystery will be solved.” She walked to her workbench. Tanis merely stood there, watching her. “By the way, Tanis,” she said without turning from measuring out several teaspoons of dark, crushed leaves for a medicinal tea, “where are those flowers I sent you for?”

  Tanis blanched and grimaced.

  Alyneri didn’t have to see him to understand his silence. “I think you know what to do,” she murmured. “And perhaps think of searching for the herbs in the herb garden this time, Tanis,” she added with a private smile, “for I need you to run into town for a few items once you’re done with that and it’s nearly sundown already.”

  Thus with a muttered apology and downcast eyes, Tanis made haste to collect the forgotten herbs.

  Alyneri finished up in the infirmary and then called her staff to move the man from the table to the adjoining bedroom. Once she was assured that her charge was resting peacefully, she went to see Farshideh.

  She found her seneschal seated in her sitting room staring absently into the fire. As usual, the room was stiflingly hot, but Alyneri pushed up her sleeves and took a chair across from her friend and mentor.

  If Farshideh had looked pale and weak this morning, now she seemed positively ethereal, as if her lifeforce was copiously bleeding out of her with every breath. Alyneri bit back a gasp and forced a smile to cover her shock, though she knew she was fooling no one. She reached to take the other woman’s hand. “Farshideh, how are you feeling? Tanis said you nearly fainted in the loggia?”

  “I was surprised, is all,” Farshideh murmured without lifting her dark eyes from the fire.

  “Won’t you please tell me what’s troubling you? Your name means radiance, and you have ever been a guiding light for me. It pains me so greatly to see you this way.”

  After a tense moment in which Alyneri feared she was going to be permanently shut out of the other woman’s thoughts, Farshideh lifted her sad, dark eyes to meet her gaze. Her next question was as startling as the dismayed expression that accompanied it. “How much did the Lady Melisande tell you of Tanis?”

  “My mother?” Alyneri asked in surprise, “of Tanis? She…well, very little actually. We never really discussed it—I mean, I never thought there was much to discuss. She just said she was taking Tanis on as a ward until he was ready for a Truthreader’s commission. I assumed his parents were—I don’t know…dead or indigent, I suppose.”

  Farshideh barked a dry laugh that erupted into a fit of coughing. She pressed a kerchief to her mouth, unable to hide the blood that stained the linen. Alyneri held her breath for fear of what she wanted to say and do. It was torture having to watch this dear woman die, knowing there was nothing she could do—yet knowing also that others might have the skill…that even that zanthyr might have the skill with Patterning to cure her.

  “Dead…to be certain,” Farshideh finally managed. “But assuredly not indigent.”

  Alyneri arched brows, wondering where this was going. “What do you know of him?”

  “Not much,” she admitted, shaking her head. “Your mother knew more of his origins, but she never spoke of them to me. Only once…once when she’d been up for several days—it was during the Red Plague in M’Nador and you were still a youngling and the boy in swaddling—once she let slip something that I’ve never forgotten.”

  “What did she say?”

  “We’d just drawn the cloth over four children—an anguished task it is, soraya, which I never wish upon you. And the Lady Melisande—I don’t think she knew I was listening—she murmured, ‘Epiphany’s grace the boy is safe in Aracine. Renaii would never forgive me if something happened to him.’”

  “Renaii?” Alyneri repeated. “That’s an Agasi name, isn’t it?”

  “Sure as silver.” Farshideh fell into another fit of coughing, and the stains upon her kerchief became broad and dark. “Her Grace spent several years in the Empire you know,” she managed once she’d recovered herself.

  Alyneri blinked in surprise. “I knew she traveled the kingdoms, even to Dheanainn, but…several years in Agasan?”

  “Her Grace had secrets, she did,” Farshideh confirmed. “Well traveled, she was, in her youth. Your grandmother, the Lady Terraine, she was in love with an Agasi all her days, even though she married that Highlands lord.”

  Alyneri shook her head and smiled. Amazing what secrets women keep in their hearts; she knew that well enough. “So my mother spent years in the Empire,” she repeated, both thrilled for the fact and injured that her mother never trusted her with the knowledge.

  “To be certain, Her Grace never studied at the Sormitáge. But she met many an Agasi in her travels with Prince Ryan.”

  “She traveled with Prince Ryan?” Alyneri was now truly startled. The king’s brother had long been gone from Dannym in his role as the Ambassador to Agasan. He made his home now in the Imperial City of Faroqhar and was raising his sons there. “How could she have so many secrets from me?” Alyneri tried to keep the hurt from her voice, but it was there all the same.

  “If she kept silent, soraya, it was only to protect you.”

  “But I’m her daughter!”

  Farshideh brushed a strand of silver-grey hair from her eyes and smiled lovingly at Alyneri. “Some things…a woman’s private affairs, affairs of the heart…these she keeps from everyone—especially her children.” She patted Alyneri’s hand between h
er own. “One day you will understand, soraya.”

  As much as she wished to feel injured by her mother’s secrets, she couldn’t find it in her heart to blame her for anything. She loved her mother too greatly to be angered by any of the choices she made in her life. Just thinking of the intensity of that love brought tears to her eyes and a burning ache in her chest. “Then…this Renaii,” she managed, blinking away the tears. “You think my mother met her on her travels?”

  Farshideh shrugged. “She never mentioned Renaii save that one time, but I cannot think how else she would have come to know such a woman.” She frowned then and looked back into the fire.

  Alyneri leaned to try to recapture her gaze. “Farshideh…what does this have to do with what happened in the loggia today?”

  Farshideh was silent for a long time. “I never thought…I never thought to see him again,” she finally whispered as if to the flames. “The way he said it…I thought it was brazen posturing. I never imagined the day would come.”

  Alyneri shook her head with bewilderment. “Farshideh, what…?”

  “I told him never to come back,” she went on, unhearing, speaking the words like a deathbed confession, never lifting her gaze from the flames. “I hated their kind during those years because of…well, because I believed some of the stories and thought them truth. So I told him to get out, that I never wanted to see him again.”

  Farshideh lifted her eyes from the fire as if with great effort and settled them on Alyneri. She smiled a dreadful smile, entirely mirthless and filled with despair. “He told me, ‘the day you see me again, old woman, is the day you will die.’”

  Alyneri stared at her. “Who told you that?”

  “The man who brought the babe Tanis to us fourteen years ago,” Farshideh returned in a bare whisper. “The zanthyr who came again today.”

  ***

  It was well and truly dark before Tanis returned from the nearby township of Bell’s Ferry, but the day hadn’t been a complete loss, for he’d learned some amazing news. Unfortunately, Mistress Hibbert and her crew—who always had an ear for gossip—had already taken to bed, so Tanis made his way down the hall in search of his lady. He saw a light glowing from the infirmary and poked his head inside.