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

by McPhail, Melissa

  “Ma dieul tan cyr im’avec…” the Shade began the oath as he’d been taught by his mentor, and as he continued to speak the words, every one of them binding him more inexorably to the man before him, he realized that he had never been so proud to be alive.

  Thirty-nine

  ‘There are no real mysteries, only obfuscations.’

  – A saying among zanthyrs

  Tanis swam in a river of confusion.

  He’d been all but abducted from his room at the Feathered Pheasant by two burly men in the livery of House val Torlen and half-carried, half-dragged downstairs, shoved abruptly into a musty closet while someone who possibly might’ve helped him passed by, then grabbed up again and carted outside quite ungently. There he was forced onto his horse and told to wait—all without a word of explanation and only the very real threat of death if he so much as uttered a whimper.

  Then Her Grace had arrived, clearly a hostage herself, and they’d all made a wild dash out of the city, through the countryside, and to the duke’s lands. But they didn’t go to his mansion atop the hill, heading instead for a smaller manor beside the river.

  All the while, no one said a single word until Her Grace dismounted and started talking to the earl. Far at the rear of the largish company, Tanis could only make out every fifth word or so, but he saw from the earl’s darkening expression that the latter misliked Her Grace’s comments, for which the lad was proud of her.

  “Let’s go, you,” said one of the men to Tanis.

  The lad pulled his gaze reluctantly from his lady, who was vanishing into the manor with the earl, and dutifully climbed down from his horse. He didn’t bother asking the soldier what this was about, for he suspected he’d find out soon enough; besides, Tanis knew enough soldiers to know none of them much liked upstart boys who asked too many questions—especially after they’d already been warned not to speak.

  So Tanis kept silent and followed obediently and managed to avoid any undue hostility from his guards.

  After what seemed a labyrinthine trip through the manor’s dark hallways, Tanis was thrust roughly into a room. He jumped as the heavy door was slammed behind him, and then he heard the bolt click into place.

  The lad exhaled resignedly and looked around.

  “Who’s there?” came a weak voice from the room’s dim recesses.

  Tanis walked toward the voice and soon saw that the room formed an L-shape. Two shadowed forms huddled on the floor in the far corner. They looked up, and Tanis caught his breath, for their eyes were colorless, exactly like his own. The boys were slightly younger than him, but their frightened manner made them seem mere children.

  Tanis swallowed his own waxing fear and approached the two boys. “I’m Tanis,” he said, kneeling before them.

  “I’m Wesley,” said a blonde-haired boy. He was holding a dark-haired boy in his arms. The latter trembled uncontrollably. “And this is…this is Piper.”

  Piper stared into the distance, unseeing, his expression fixed in horror.

  Tanis felt cold just looking at the boy. It was like he was caught in a waking nightmare. “What…happened to him?”

  “They tested him three days ago,” Wesley said, sounding as if he was trying hard not to cry. “They mean to test me too.” He gulped. “Maybe even…tonight.”

  Tanis shook his head, not understanding. “Test you?”

  Wesley gave him a terrified look and whispered, “To see if I can withstand…” It took him a moment to muster the courage to finish. “To see if I can withstand Bethamin’s Fire.”

  Tanis recoiled from the heinous words. “Bethamin!” he hissed, staring incredulously at Wesley. “Are you saying there’s Marquiin here? In Dannym?”

  Wesley gazed fretfully at him. “That’s who’s taken us,” he whispered miserably. “The Ascendant is our master now.”

  His tone was so wretched, so entirely without hope that Tanis wanted to shake some courage back into him. Instead, he said, “Tell me what happened to you.”

  Wesley stared at him for a moment and then burst into tears.

  The story came out in bits and pieces. How he was taken from his home in Cair Thessalonia and forced to travel with the Ascendant and his Marquiin while they hunted the Free Cities for other young Truthreaders, how they kept him in a dark room night and day until it was time to move to the next city; how they beat him if he misbehaved, if he spoke to anyone, raised his eyes in public, or so much as breathed wrong.

  “They found Piper in a village outside of Jeune,” Wesley told Tanis later. “He was supposed to go next year to Tregarion for his training and a commission to Queen Indora. Now he’ll—” Wesley’s voice broke again, and he fell into another fit of crying.

  Tanis looked at the wretched, horror-stricken Piper and didn’t have the stomach to ask if he’d passed or failed his test, mostly because the idea that he might’ve passed it and yet remain in such a state was too horrible to contemplate. Hoping to distract Wesley somewhat from his fears, he asked gently, “What of you, Wesley? Have you trained at all?”

  “No,” the boy sniffed. “I’m only twelve.”

  Twelve!

  Now Tanis really wanted to punch something. A Marquiin would do nicely! Instead, he clenched his teeth and looked at the trembling Piper, who was only a year younger than him. “Has he spoken to you, Wesley? You know…since…”

  Wesley shook his head.

  Tanis had an idea. He knew he was taking a personal risk to do what he intended, but if it could spare the other boy some of what must be terrible pain, didn’t he have to try?

  ‘As it pertains to the practice of healing,’ Master o’Reith had taught Tanis, ‘a Truthreader approaches his craft in three stages: he can draw forth the memories from a man as a voyeur, watching silently from the shadows of another’s thoughts; he can diffuse these memories of their power, leeching the life from them so they remain a pale shadow of their former selves; or he can, as a last resort, take them altogether, wall them away behind clouds of blackness such that only another Truthreader might restore them to conscious awareness...’

  Tanis hadn’t the knowledge to perform the third stage of healing, but he’d practiced the second method with his master. The danger was that in order to get to the second stage of healing, he had to experience the first. He would have to relive the moment with Piper.

  “Tanis?” Wesley asked fretfully, for he’d been silent for a long time.

  Tanis turned his gaze to the younger boy. “I think I may know a way to help Piper.”

  “You do?”

  Tanis exhaled heavily. “But it won’t be easy—for him or for me. Do you think you can hold Piper still?”

  Wesley looked uncertain.

  “It’s just that…if he jerks away from my touch, it could make him worse, not better. Do you think you can do it?”

  Wesley licked his lips. “I’ll try, Tanis,” he whispered. “I’ll try really hard.”

  “Good.”

  Tanis took a moment to remember his lesson, but mostly to prepare himself for whatever had so terrified Piper. Remember it’s not happening to you, he reminded himself. Whatever you see, it’s Piper’s memory, not yours. It can’t hurt you if you don’t allow it.

  At last Tanis felt as ready as he’d ever be. He placed one hand on Piper’s trembling shoulder and rested the other upon his forehead.

  Tanis had once commented churlishly to Master o’Reith that he thought the reason only men were born as Truthreaders was the impossible finger positioning required for reading another person against their will—that only grown men could possibly have hands large enough to comfortably manage the form.

  Master o’Reith had made him practice it anyway until he got it perfect every time, so Tanis had no uncertainty in how to position his fingers properly. His thumb went to Piper’s temple, his first and middle fingers to the pressure-points at the joining of the bridge of the nose and brows, his fourth and little fingers spanning the eye to press into the opposite temple.
>
  His fingers firmly positioned, he concentrated.

  It took only seconds, for Piper’s thoughts were a raging torrent, a shrieking gale that overpowered Tanis at once, unprepared as he was for the onslaught. He mentally recoiled, blasted almost entirely out of the other boy’s thoughts. He held on by sheer force of will, gritted his teeth and sent his mind spearing back through the wild, spinning madness searching for the memory beneath the mania. Tanis felt buffeted by the maelstrom that was Piper’s tortured mind, a twisted, toxic vortex of heaving darkness and jagged crackling pain.

  How could anyone survive this with any sanity intact? Tanis thought weakly.

  Still, Tanis plunged on, eyes closed, his mind melded with Piper’s. In the dark room, Wesley watched Tanis in wordless terror, watched as beads of perspiration formed and fell from his brow, as his left hand gripped Piper’s shoulder until his knuckles turned white.

  Tanis lost track of the minutes, for it he was soon so lost within the maelstrom that it was all he could do not to spiral off into the madness himself. Standing amid the storm, he was whipped and buffeted with nothing to gauge his whereabouts and nothing to hold onto for support, tossed like flotsam in the dense, malevolent waves of a depthless sea. He felt panic coming upon him. No matter where he looked, he couldn’t find the light, couldn’t find his bearings. There was only the darkness whipping around him, the terrible flashes of crackling static that were painful and sharp, the churning, raging anger that had no source and no outlet. Tanis searched for anything to lead him beyond the storm, but there was nothing else to see.

  And then he understood. Gooseflesh sprouted down his arms with the dreadful realization.

  There wasn’t some underlying event that had spawned this madness. The virulent storm was all there was, and Piper was lost in it. Only, unlike Tanis, Piper couldn’t escape by simply opening his eyes. For Piper, there was no escape.

  At the same time Tanis realized this tragic truth, he also knew he couldn’t help the boy. This was something far beyond his skill, a malevolent working that defied understanding. He slowly withdrew his mind from rapport with the other boy’s—

  But Piper clung to him. Tanis had a heartbreaking sense of the boy’s consciousness, somewhere lost among the madly twisting shadows that had overtaken his mind. I’m sorry! Tanis cried. I’m so, so sorry, but I can’t help you.

  Piper strained to hold onto him. Tanis felt his presence as a vague yet desperate pulling against his will, but Tanis couldn’t take anymore. He jerked free of the boy’s mental pull and released Piper’s head in the same instant, snatching his hand away and falling backward onto his hands.

  Wesley started at his abrupt motion.

  Shaken by what he’d learned and trembling from the experience, Tanis hugged his knees, pressed palms to his eyes and caught his lip between his teeth. He’d never before experienced the grief that flooded him then. To see so clearly into another’s madness and know there was nothing—nothing—he could do to help him…to give him even a measure of peace…

  Wesley saw his shoulders shaking with silent weeping.

  “Tanis?” he whispered, truly terrified now. “Are you…are you still…you? Please, Tanis—tell me it’s so!”

  Abruptly Tanis wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He focused upon the younger boy. “It’s fine,” he managed in a choked voice. “I’m fine. I just…” His throat constricted and his chest felt swollen and tight. “…I couldn’t help him, after all.”

  “Oh.” Wesley drew Piper closer. For the first time, Tanis realized Wesley wasn’t comforting the older boy but rather was taking reassurance from him—from this maniacally twisted remnant of a once vibrant young life.

  There was something so virulently wrong with this scenario that Tanis wasn’t sure how to control the anger he felt at it. He jumped to his feet and walked over to the dark window, which was barred both inside and out. He took hold of the cold iron and gripped it until his hands ached, pressing his forehead against the metal bars, trying not to rip himself apart with fury and heartache both. He was still there when the door unlatched and a guard walked in.

  “Time to go, you.”

  Tanis turned to him. “Me?”

  “Yes you. Move it.”

  Tanis spared a parting glance for Wesley. The boy started crying again and buried his face in Piper’s dark hair. Right then, Tanis resolved to save Wesley if it was the last thing he ever did.

  He walked into the hall after the guard, who grabbed him by the shoulders while his counterpart locked the door again.

  Tanis was marched upstairs and through the dim manor, past furniture draped in linen, and finally down a hallway to a door at the end. When they shoved him inside, his mood brightened unexpectedly.

  Her Grace stood on the far side of the long room next to the Earl of Pent, and Tanis was so pleased to see her safe and whole that he almost didn’t notice the man coming towards him until he spoke.

  “Ah then, this must be young Tanis of Giverny.”

  Tanis turned to face the man, rightfully naming him Bethamin’s Ascendant. A tall man, bald and brazen, he wore a wrapped skirt of white linen looped into a gold belt at his waist. His bare chest was collared with a gold torque which matched the wide bands at his wrists. He turned to look behind him momentarily, and Tanis saw that his back was tattooed with a violent design that seemed nothing it not a foul hex. Looking closer, Tanis realized it wasn’t so much a tattoo as a brand burned into his flesh, the welts raised and angry. “Come and meet our newest candidate,” the Ascendant said, motioning to a form that Tanis had at first thought was a statue draped in linen.

  When the statue moved, Tanis knew he was looking at a Marquiin.

  He should’ve gone cold at the sight, knowing what was to come, but his anger warmed him.

  “You cannot do this!” Alyneri protested from the far end of the room, her voice near to tears.

  But the earl silenced her with a hiss. “If you persist in disturbing this process, Your Grace, I will be forced to silence you more forcefully.”

  Alyneri pressed her hands to her mouth, and Tanis saw tears streaming down her cheeks. If he’d harbored any question of what was in store for him, her desperate tears sealed it.

  As the Marquiin approached in his ghostly grey robes, the Ascendant turned back to Tanis. “You are a lucky boy, young man,” he proclaimed. “You’re being given the opportunity to test for a great honor. The honor of becoming a Marquiin.”

  Tanis stared at the ugly man. His dark, heavy brows seemed a solid line across his pronounced forehead, and his nose was aquiline and fierce. Looking at him, thinking of what he’d done to Piper, Tanis felt a knot in his gut that turned on the spit of his fury, hardening his resolve. His colorless eyes were hard as agates, and quite without fear as the Marquiin stopped before him.

  Tanis could see nothing of his face beneath the layers of grey gauze. There was an unhealthy smell about him, however, and his thoughts were loud with violent force. They bled into the boy’s sensitive awareness, and his mind shrank from their senseless fury. Tanis instinctively wrapped his mind with thoughts of love and laughter to keep out the Marquiin’s turbulent thoughts, which were literally spilling forth like an overflowing well, corrupting everything they touched.

  The taller man’s hand appeared from somewhere among his ghostly robes, and Tanis braced himself for whatever was to come.

  Alyneri sobbed a cry and turned away.

  The Marquiin laid one hand on Tanis’s shoulder, and the other found its way across his face into the Truthreader’s hold.

  Tanis closed his eyes and waited. He felt…

  Nothing.

  He knew something should’ve been happening—at the very least he should’ve felt some compulsion—but he saw only the backs of his eyelids. Then he did feel something strange, only it wasn’t at all what he expected.

  It was…cold.

  Cold that slithered through the folds of his consciousness like the pouring of thick venom. He felt it
slowly, inexorably flooding into his mind, its numbing chill cold enough to make his teeth chatter. He forcibly clenched his teeth to keep them quiet, and soon his jaw began to ache from the effort.

  “What’s happening?” the Ascendant demanded, his voice heated with anger.

  The Marquiin gripped Tanis’s shoulder tighter…tighter, until his fingernails cut into the lad’s flesh. Tanis winced, but he dared not pull away.

  The sensation of slimy cold worms wiggling through his brain grew stronger still. Only they didn’t stop with his mind alone. He felt the chill seeping throughout his very core until he started shivering uncontrollably.

  “You’re doing something wrong!” the Ascendant snarled, furious now. “Go deeper! Make him see it!”

  Eyes still closed, Tanis felt the cold fading. It was like the flow had finally stopped, and now he waited for the rest of the disgusting, malevolent stuff to make its way out of his body, down his spine, past his knees…until it seeped through his heels and out into the floor. Tanis half expected to open his eyes and find himself knee-deep in icy grey-green slime.

  The Marquiin released him abruptly and staggered back.

  Tanis blinked and opened his eyes.

  “Oh, Tanis!” Alyneri cried with both hands covering her mouth.

  Tanis looked around in confusion. The Marquiin was holding onto the mantel—it couldn’t be for support, could it? That didn’t make any sense. Neither did the wintry look of fury on the Ascendant’s face. He took two steps and backhanded Tanis across the mouth. The lad heard his jaw snap as he was knocked to his hands and knees.

  “Tanis!” Alyneri screamed.

  Tanis felt blood filling his mouth, tasting strongly of salt, and darkness pressed in on his vision. He moved his head gingerly, but the pain that flooded him with that tiniest motion was more than he could bear. He chose the darkness instead.

  ***

  Rhys pounded the hilt of his sword against the door of Duke Thane val Torlen’s mansion, each strike reverberating like distant thunder. Moments later, the doors were unbolted, and one opened to admit a grey-haired man in a trim black suit.