Ean joined him there, settling into the fire’s circle of welcoming warmth. Creighton tended the flames, and Ean watched him, glimpsing for one heart-breaking moment his blood-brother’s familiar profile amidst the ever-shifting shadows that obscured his features.
After a long moment of silence, Creighton looked up from the flames and asked, “Are you ready now to try again, Ean?”
The prince sighed. It was a torment living in this half-world of dreams where Creighton lived and yet did not, though a welcome torment compared to a waking world where all traces of him were lost. “Yes,” he said. But then he frowned. “You know, the real Creighton knew nothing of these things.” He toyed with a stick as he glanced up under his brows, scraping a deep, dark line in the sand. “Which begs the question how I am learning from someone who cannot exist? Are you my own memory from another life? Or someone sent by Dagmar in the guise of my friend—and if so, why the charade?”
Creighton looked sad—or at least the shifting shadows that concealed his face seemed somehow so. “I told you, Ean,” he said, his words laden with regret. “In this place, I am who you want me to be.”
Ean considered him. “I would have you be none other than you are.”
“Truly?” Creighton lifted his head and stared at Ean, though the prince had only the impression of meeting his gaze. “Even should your dream of the friend and brother you loved be ended here and now? You are ready to say good-bye to Creighton Khelspath forever?”
I already have, Ean thought bitterly, but it was not the truth. He wasn’t ready to let go of this apparition, however false it might one day prove to be. Even conversing with the specter of his friend was a joy beyond measure. “Let’s try again,” he said instead, and Creighton let the matter go as well, neither of them ready to face that moment.
Creighton stood. “Once again, I will work the layers of obscuring, and you must find the pattern in them—but quickly, for with each moment you delay my power grows stronger, the obscuring more solidly in place.” He walked away from the fire to stand in the open where the wind whipped his ebony cloak and twisted his longish hair into dark flames.
Ean followed and came to stand before him.
Creighton lashed out.
The obscuring hit with powerful force—more power than any of their practices before. Ean threw up a mental shield against the cold power, as the zanthyr had taught him to do, though it gained him but a precious few moments in which to act. He used what reprieve he gained to cast his awareness toward Creighton, seeking the pattern inherent in his working.
Again and again he cast out in search of it, but always his awareness only skimmed the surface of the spell, never penetrating it. Creighton’s obscuring appeared in Ean’s mind-sight as sheets of blue-black ice, in places iridescent, and in others violet-pale. Ean’s spear was a thin silver line, steel hard and needle sharp, but the ice of the obscuring was too thick, impenetrable, and his needle merely rebounded or skittered away harmlessly along the surface.
“Concentrate, Ean!”
Ean felt the obscuring begin to penetrate his mental wall, a dulling sensation along the fringes, like the first tingling of numb fingers. His concentration faltered, and that focus of awareness lost its structure; now a silver-thin thread wavered unsteadily beyond his grasp.
“No,” Creighton growled. He banished his power, accentuated with a wave of his hand, and instantly Ean felt alert again. “It is too much for you still.”
Ean uttered a groan as a painful pounding in his skull rushed in to fill the void left by the obscuring. He pushed his palm against the bridge of his nose and forced a measured breath. “No,” he murmured then, dropping his hand and looking firmly back to his friend. “Do it again.”
Creighton seemed hesitant. “We are safer here than practicing in the waking world, but you can still be harmed, Ean.”
“No, I can do it.” Ean wanted to do it, too; partly for himself, and of course for the greater purpose of surviving his next confrontation with one of Björn’s creatures; but mostly he wanted to do it for Creighton, because his friend had faith in him. Ean couldn’t bear to let him down.
“Very well.”
Creighton lashed out again without warning, but Ean was quicker that time. He shielded his mind with the force of his intention—he was beginning to understand the concepts Phaedor had been trying to teach him, though he had to think of them in different terms.
A wielder is limited by what he can envision, the zanthyr taught him, and Ean was coming to realize just how true that was. Every working might be worked differently by different wielders. The pattern was the same, but how a wielder envisioned its use varied greatly. The zanthyr had shown him how to layer his concentration, how to compartmentalize his thoughts even as one might analyze and compartment one’s emotions, but the images which Ean envisioned for protecting himself were not the same images the zanthyr used. Ean conceived of his shield as a glowing golden ring surrounding his mind; he focused on the pattern and formed the ring, and was elated when he realized that within this ring, he felt secure.
Bolstered by his success, Ean formed the spear of his awareness and cast it forward, but he did not merely pitch it tentatively across the distance toward the glacial walls of Creighton’s obscuring, he rocketed it.
Instantly he saw the pattern for which he searched, saw where it began and ended, knew how to deconstruct it. Instinct drove him, and he latched onto the end of the pattern and began to pull—
“Ean, no!” Creighton gasped.
Suddenly a flood of images and sound overtook the prince, shattering through his protective shield. He didn’t understand what had happened, only that he couldn’t stop the sudden deluge of perceptions that tumbled into his mind. Ean threw up his hand and staggered backwards, but it was no physical force that accosted him. Wave upon wave of images, memories and emotions, myriad perceptions and thoughts—they hit him unrelentingly until he fell to his knees, his mind reeling, a painful white light blurring his vision. “Make it stop!” he gasped.
Suddenly Creighton was there, placing a hand around the back of his neck, another pressing to his forehead…
And everything faded.
Silence slowly waned, and soon the sound of the waves crashing around his knees returned. Ean looked up with words of gratitude upon his tongue, but it wasn’t Creighton who held him.
Shocked, he pulled free of the man and scrambled away, but as he gained his feet, reeling in confusion, it was only Creighton who stood before him.
“Who are you?” Ean gasped accusingly. “Who was that?”
Creighton held out a hand in entreaty, his features ever shifting, ever hidden. “Ean…”
Ean felt betrayed, his emotions so raw as to rend his soul in two. “That was…him wasn’t it?” he only just choked out the words. “You…you’re as false as the rest of them!”
“Ean, wait—” but Ean was already running, running…running for the grey haze that was the edge of dreams. He threw himself headlong into it—
—and landed painfully on hands and knees in a fire-lit library. Ean got to his feet, his entire body taut as a bowstring, his fury ready to erupt. He spied the man sitting in a shadowed armchair, and the glare he leveled the Second Vestal was piercing.
“Is all of this your doing? Preying treacherously upon my deepest regrets—summoning the illusion of my slain blood-brother to make me into his pawn—a weapon for him to use against all that I hold dear! You—” he was so furious he could barely get the words out. “Raine spoke of you as a man of uncompromising honor! How can you be so…so duplicitous?”
Dagmar held his gaze regretfully. “Ean,” he sighed, “you don’t understand.”
“Don’t I?” The prince’s tone was scathing. “Raine told me your loyalty was suspect, but I hoped…I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Now I see you’re as corrupted by the Fifth Vestal’s power—this deyjiin—” he spat the word like poison at his feet, “as Raine feared you would be. Tell me, my lord,
did the Fifth Vestal seduce you or merely bind you to his cause? I have seen the Marquiin—I know what such workings do to a man.”
Dagmar gazed sadly upon him. “The First Lord binds no man against his will.”
“You went willingly into the dark then, did you?” Ean sneered, his tone thick with disdain. Suddenly the pent-up fury of months erupted out of him, aimed unerringly at the Vestal. “How can you support him?” He threw out his hand along with his shout to the nebulous ether. “All of you took a Vestal oath, did you not? Are you not sworn to protect this world?”
Dagmar pressed his lips together, his brow furrowed. There was no ire in him, only concern. “I have betrayed no Vestal oaths,” he replied quietly, “…nor has my oath-brother betrayed his.”
“No, of course not!” Ean scoffed. “Because murdering the Hundred Mages on Tiern’aval wasn’t a break of faith! Or did history get that wrong, too?”
Dagmar’s lips were set in a thin, hard line, his pale green eyes intent. Ean expected any moment that the words barely held in check would come tumbling out, but he only replied at last, and with regret, “That isn’t my truth to tell.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ean growled. “Whatever he did or didn’t do, of one thing I’m certain: his creature slew my blood-brother in cold blood, and one day, I swear to you, I will make him atone for it.”
“You have been wronged, Ean,” Dagmar agreed, holding Ean’s incendiary gaze with naught but compassion in return, “but not by us. Even now you are but a day’s ride from the Cairs, and at whose behest?”
Ean knew Dagmar already had the answer he sought, but he gritted his teeth and replied anyway, “Raine’s.”
“Raine’s,” Dagmar repeated with slow precision, letting the name penetrate. “Raine D’Lacourte. Fourth Vestal of Alorin, infamous Truthreader of legend, raedan beyond compare. No Adept working impinges upon the currents that Raine cannot decipher. You claim I have deceived you, Ean, but ’tis my oath-brother who sends you unwittingly into the very heart of danger.”
When Ean said nothing, only stared coldly at him, Dagmar continued, “For as long as you have been on the mainland, Ean, Björn has been in the Cairs. I assure you, Raine has known of the Fifth Vestal’s location since our oath-brother first set foot back in the realm.” Dagmar held Ean’s gaze so there was no avoiding the truth he spoke. “Raine purposefully sent you straight to Björn’s doorstep.”
Ean tasted the thick syrup of betrayal, and it nearly gagged him. “Why?” he croaked.
“Bait.”
“Bait.” Ean felt a blood-rage welling and fought to control it, but the word still came out as a wolfish snarl. “Bait!”
“Above all else, Raine seeks Björn,” Dagmar explained. “He believes you have a chance of drawing the Fifth Vestal from his hidden lair, since he obviously has an interest in you—”
“There’s not a one of you that would hesitate to use me to serve your purposes!” Ean snapped. He took two steps forward and leaned in, his gaze icy. “Well, I have news for you,” he said with slow deliberation, “all of you, and your First Lord, too. Let it be known wide and far: I am no man’s pawn any longer.” And before Dagmar could respond, Ean cast himself from the dream.
Now he stood staring at the pristine city of Cair Rethynnea knowing everything—absolutely everything—had changed.
A shadow befell him. Ean didn’t need to turn to know who approached.
Well…almost everything.
“There is an unusual convergence of forces in Rethynnea,” the zanthyr observed as he came to stand beside Ean. “The currents are riotous. Few maintain their usual channels.”
“I’ll pretend like I know what you’re talking about,” Ean muttered.
“It would be wise to contact the Fourth Vestal at once. We must know what he knows.”
Ean clenched his teeth. “I told you, I don’t want to see him.”
“Yet you’ve given no reason why save to repeat yourself with uncharacteristic petulance.”
Ean cast the zanthyr a dark look.
Gwynnleth approached then, coming to stand on Ean’s right. She glared irritably toward the high hills. “Seth is here,” she remarked.
“That would account for the discord I observed in the currents,” Phaedor noted dryly.
She crossed arms and settled him an arch look. “One would think that after so many centuries the two of you would’ve learned to get along.”
“One would think that through the centuries the mushroom might have evolved from a lowly fungus,” Phaedor returned casually, “but time bears out that most life forms are simply too obtuse to elevate beyond their inherent limitations.”
Gwynnleth glared suspiciously at him. “Which one of you is the mushroom in this example?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ean said, speaking from a completely different train of thought. They both looked to him. “Seeing Raine, I mean,” he said resolutely. “I need to tell him anyway.”
“Tell him what?” Gwynnleth asked.
“That I will be his pawn no longer.”
She frowned at him. “Well…that is one mark against you. And here you’d been doing so unexpectedly well.”
“What?” he protested churlishly. “Why?”
“What’s the point of telling anyone you’ll not be their pawn? It’s useless posturing, but very Northern of you.”
“Posturing sometimes has its merits,” Phaedor observed. “A viper’s posturing has saved the lives of many a man ill-prepared to withstand its bite.”
“My point exactly,” she muttered.
Ean retreated to his thoughts while the conversation continued without him. On the one hand he felt despondent, wasted. His emotions were still raw and weeping wounds, his conscience angry and vindictive, desperate for vengeance, for atonement. But another side of him demanded answers and action. He wasn’t simply going to bend over and take it, and he wasn’t going out of the game without a drag-down all-out tooth and claw fight for the prize.
Whatever it was.
As the ferryman turned them toward a slip near the middle of the long dock, Ean gazed at the towering, multicolored columns at the top of Rethynnea’s wide band of stairs and wondered what in Tiern’aval he was doing there. “So,” he said cheerlessly, “what now?”
“As a pawn,” the zanthyr offered, giving him a sideways look, “you had no clear view of the game board. You couldn’t know what other pieces are in play, what schemes devised; but there is one advantage you have now.”
Ean frowned as he watched the ferry closing in on the dock. “Which is what?”
“The other players do not realize you are now one of them. Until you better understand the game, the smartest move you can make is to make no move at all. Wait, watch, observe what pieces are in play. Form your strategy, learn the rules.”
“You’re wrong,” Ean said, turning grey eyes upon him. “There is another move I can make.”
The zanthyr arched a raven brow. “Which is?”
“I can target the most valuable piece on the board and take it for my own.”
The zanthyr’s emerald eyes gleamed. “And do you know what piece that is?”
“Yeah,” Ean said as the ferry bumped against the dock and men threw lines to secure it. He held the zanthyr’s gaze. “Me.”
***
High on the mountainside overlooking the Bay of Jewels, on the street running just below Rethynnea’s famed Avenue of the Gods, a tavern stood in the shadow of the Pillars of Jai’Gar. At the furthest table in the darkest corner of this tavern, six men sat hunched over a game of Western Trumps. Four had been trumped out of the game, and the last two were down to five cards each. The stakes were high; the pot held at least thirty Free Crown, a couple of rubies that looked as though they’d been pried out of a statue, and a silver medallion inscribed with a complex map of the seven seas.
The medallion belonged to the long-haired pirate with the five-day beard; the rubies belonged to the bald thief with the scar for a lef
t eye. Neither of them intended to part with their belongings.
It was the one-eyed thief’s turn. He kept glancing from his cards to those of the pirate as if trying to see through the ink to the telling pictures on the other side.
“It’s your play, Smythe,” Carian vran Lea reminded the thief.
Smythe scratched the stubble beneath his chin as he pondered his next move. The trick about Trumps was saving the best trump for last while not letting yourself get trumped out of the game, which meant frequently having to sacrifice a trump—the exact problem Smythe faced just then. His good eye flashed around the table in quick scrutiny of the other men, but they were staying noncommittal. They all knew Smythe’s reputation, but they also knew what happened to people that crossed one of the pirates of Jamaii.
Finally, the thief growled something uncomplimentary and threw down a queen’s knave.
Carian remained stone-faced while he scanned his cards. There were lots of cards that trumped a queen’s knave, but with just five cards left, he didn’t have any to waste—and that was what Smythe was forcing him to do. You’re a sly bastard.
Now the problem became which card to sacrifice? He could match the thief’s knave with another knave—the smartest approach. Or he could trump him with a priest and force him to play a decent card. Playing a priest was always a tricky move, however. Sometimes it backfired on you.
He could also trump him with a queen or her lady, but such was risky if the thief had any kings or—gods forbid—a hated sorcerer. And neither of them could know which card the other was holding out for the final trump. A quarter of the deck remained in a pile on the table. Was the ace there, or already in Smythe’s hand?
Carian played it safe and matched him.
He could tell from Smythe’s immediate indecision that he didn’t have any more knaves or anything to trump him with. That meant they would start a new play, each drawing one card. It could be the ace.
They both drew.
***
Fynn and Brody were waiting beneath Rethynnea’s famous columns when Ean’s company finished the long climb out of the harbor. The royal cousin had taken an earlier ferry in order to procure a villa for them, and he was in good spirits as Ean and the others joined him on the city’s main boulevard called the Thoroughfare.
Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One Page 88
