What must it have been like for Markal…to know what Ean was inherently capable of, yet to watch him fail and fail and fail, to see all of that immense knowledge and ability lost. It must’ve been agonizing.
Even more frustrating to Ean personally was that though he now recalled much of his earlier lifetime as Arion, yet the most important truths remained hidden. What had really happened at the Citadel? How had Arion died? And what betrayal of Arion’s sang so sharply in Ean’s consciousness that its guilty notes pierced the veil of memory but the song itself remained hidden?
Feeling the punishing weight of these unknowns, Ean sank down on an upended urn, braced elbows on his knees and let his head hang while the currents funneled through him.
Exhaustion had become his closest companion. He felt it always, a downy layer that dampened his thoughts and made his flesh sluggish to respond, but exhaustion’s muslin coating at least turned Arion’s memories into hazy outlines instead of sharp and cutting recollections full of emotion and regret.
Recalling to mind the patterns he’d been recently practicing, Ean lifted his gaze and focused on the shattered bits of stone spread across the tiles. Then he set to work, binding sand and stone on a molecular level, particle by particle, stacking them in a continuing polarity that magnetized each particle to the next, rebuilding the wall stronger than any forged of mortar and stone.
The patterns involved in this process had required all of his concentration at first, but now the sequence was becoming automatic, leaving part of his mind free to wander.
It wandered, as it often did, into Arion’s memories…
*—*
Arion Tavestra narrowed his eyes and drew another careful line of the pattern he was sketching in his journal. Mathematical equations written in a neat hand along the journal’s left margin put explanation to the pattern’s use, while diagrams of each of the pattern’s angles gave a complete view of the three-dimensional pattern so it could be wielded.
This pattern melted rock. Arion had formed the pattern with his intent, postulating the possibility against the laws of energy. But the doing was the easy part. Function always monitored structure—thought, intent, was in every case senior to action.
Understanding what had occurred as a result of one’s intent…that was where Arion’s real interest lay. Why had this particular pattern caused the rock’s molecules to circulate and recombine into a new but equally stable structure?
He’d spent weeks extrapolating backwards from the doingness to achieve understanding of what he’d done. In the process, he’d developed the equations that explained this pattern’s potential for energy transfer, elemental synergy, and symbiotic molecular realignment. Now the equations could be used to induce and predict further phenomena.
His journals were filled with such patterns and associated formulae.
Laughter rang out from across the room. Arion glanced up beneath his brows to see two of his friends clapping a third on the back in a congratulatory fashion.
They’d gathered in the common room of Malthus, the Sormitáge boarding house so many of them called home. Malthus, with its vaulted ceilings and loftier personages, its venerable halls and its aging Scholars—learned mummies of petrified thought, embalmed of pipe smoke and atrophied traditions.
Malthus, with its massive lion’s mouth mantel carved of pretension, and its paneled walls burnished with wisdom yet continuously oiled with the ideals of youth; Malthus, where they discussed the Laws and Esoterics as revolutionaries might argue ideologies.
It was where they made their home, where they studied and debated and dreamed; but for Arion, they might’ve dwelled anywhere, so long as they were together, for it was these people—his closest friends—who made Malthus what it meant to them all.
Upon this thought, Arion scanned the rest of the room. His eyes crinkled warmly as his gaze alighted on a corner more crowded by ideas than men. Among the five voices raised there in a heated debate, the loudest two were Anglar Tempest’s and Malachai ap’Kalien’s, two of Malthus’ resident idealists, who were ever at odds with their pragmatist opposites—the truthreaders Voss di Alera, Haden van Leister and Raine D’Lacourte.
Raine…who had no idea that in a few days’ time, Björn van Gelderan was going to invite him to take the Vestal Oath.
“Arion,” the truthreader Cristien Tagliaferro waved to him from hearthside. “Come and congratulate young Francois on his recent accomplishment.”
Arion looked back to his drawing and started another careful line. “Which was?”
Cristien clapped the dark-haired Francois on the shoulder again, while his colorless eyes looked him over admiringly. “Gaining the favor of Elyse van Gelderan.”
“You’re wasting your breath, Cristien.” Seated by the fire, Parsifal D’Marre held up his goblet to Francois but fixed his amber-eyed gaze on Arion. “Tavestra counts only one accomplishment as being worthy of praise—the kind that comes with a gold ring.”
“Not true, Parsifal.” Arion finished the loop on the line he’d been penning and looked up. “I congratulate Francois on his display of courage.”
“Oh, here we go.” Cristien rolled his eyes humorously and headed across the room towards the sideboard and more wine.
“Courage?” Parsifal spread his arms along the back of his leather chair and crossed an ankle over one knee. He made a show of stroking the satyr’s chin whiskers he called a beard while he pondered Arion’s comment. “I’ll grant there’s a small degree of bravery in approaching one of the Emperor’s nieces, but…”
“Courage,” Arion lifted a finger in his favorite manner of erudite mockery, “could be described as first, intending to cause something, and second,” he added another finger beside the first, “pressing forward to achieve the effect one intends despite any and all odds, letting nothing and no one stand in your way.” He winked at Francois. “I suspect our Francois encountered quite a few people standing in his way on the path to courting Elyse van Gelderan.”
Francois beamed at him.
“Letting nothing and no one stand in your way,” repeated a deep voice from the room’s entrance.
Arion turned his head to see the Maestro Markal Morrelaine, his master, standing beneath the arch of the open doors. Markal’s broad frame took up much of the space, and his dignity claimed the rest. A pall of skepticism hovered like smoke around him, the residue of his comment. “Does that mean harming anyone?”
“If need be,” Arion admitted.
Markal moved on inside the room, whereupon Francois and the others hastily excused themselves—Arion was the only one who enjoyed debating with Markal. The wielder advanced steadily behind the cavalry of his stare. “The ends justify the means?”
Arion set down his pen and folded fingers in his lap, all of them bound by gold Sormitáge rings. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes when?”
“When the end is greater than the sum of its parts,” offered a returning Cristien. He sat down at the table next to Arion and pushed a goblet of wine towards him.
Arion gave Cristien a quick smile of gratitude.
Cristien…with his tousled brown hair and poet’s mouth, more apt to quote a sonnet than the Laws, yet who was conspiring with the rest of them in the most desperate gambit of all time.
Cristien clasped hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “But we’re talking about courage, old man, not morality.”
Markal arched a mordant black brow; its triangle of dubiety stood out starkly against his head of wavy white hair. “Arion is talking about Patterning with his little speech on courage, therefore we are talking about morality, Cristien. The two must be inseparable for a wielder.”
Cristien leaned forward and tapped a finger on the table. “Not morality. Ethicality. Those Philosophy literatos want us to think the terms are interchangeable, but they’re not—especially not in Patterning. The moral code of conduct devised by the State must always bow to the ethical principles of individual reason.”
Markal cast the fifth across the room and lassoed an armchair to his will. Its feet scraped so loudly as they crossed the marble floor that the Adepts debating in the corner paused their heated discussion to glare at him.
Indifferent to their irritation, he seated himself with scholarly aplomb and steepled fingers before his broad chest. Leveling Cristien that particularly menacing gaze he assumed when about to give an upstart student a verbal lashing, Markal inquired coolly, “And pray inform me, Cristien Tagliaferro, what is the difference between morality and ethicality?”
Cristien drank his wine while eyeing Markal over the rim. After a moment, he replied, “What’s ethical is not always moral.”
“How not?”
Arion gave Markal a hard look. “Must you always advocate for the darker side of reason? You know perfectly well why not.”
A smile flickered at the edge of Markal’s lips but disappeared before it could manifest, banished for its impertinence. “Yes, but does Cristien?”
Cristien’s expression sobered. “If I didn’t, do you think he would’ve asked me to join the Council of Nine?”
Markal grunted. “I don’t profess to understand a fraction of what Björn does.”
“But you profess to challenge his decisions,” Arion observed dryly.
Markal turned him a penetrating stare. “Only the incomprehensible ones.”
“When the greater good speaks louder than the individual wrong,” Cristien declared with a hint of indignation in his tone. “That’s when an act may be ethical without also being moral.”
“Stealing the storm to end the drought,” Markal proposed broodingly.
“Yes.”
“Compelling the iniquitous to a new moral course?”
“Potentially.” Cristien drank his wine and gazed deliberately at Markal over the rim.
“Slaying the enemy’s army to prevent the war?”
“Yes, if you must!”
“And bring Cephrael’s gavel falling upon your head, Cristien,” Markal growled. “Ethicality in Patterning will get you killed.”
“Courage,” Arion stressed, returning them to the original topic, “requires a steadfast, unwavering conviction to achieve the effect one has envisioned despite all adversity—even the adversity of moral conflict, Maestro. This is application of the First Law: KNOW the effect you intend to create. Our only true protection in Patterning is a steadfast application of the Laws.”
Cristien leveled a vindicated look at Markal. “The Laws—not the arbitrary moral codes of kings and literatos—keep a wielder on the right side of Balance.”
Markal pressed and released his steepled fingers as if the bellows of his thoughts. “The First Law: KNOW the effect you intend to create.” His dark eyes scanned the both of them. “The Law speaks nothing of achieving the effect.”
Cristien waved him off. “Achieving the effect is implicit, old man.”
Markal looked to Arion. “And the achieving of this effect justifies all manner of ills? Is this your stance, Arion?”
“I’m merely seeking to define courage, Maestro.”
“No, you’re setting a precedent that cannot be maintained. Sometimes the effect shouldn’t be achieved—sometimes you don’t realize this until halfway down the path of achievement. What one can do isn’t always what one should do, and the far-reaching ramifications of a wielder’s actions are not always predictable.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Maestro. It’s the First Law in action. If you can’t predict and control the outcome, you shouldn’t be Patterning to begin with.”
“Glibly spoken when all of your workings to date impact only yourself, Arion. Take those viewpoints out into the arena of the world and see how far-reaching becomes your prediction.”
Arion sprouted a grin. “Very well, Maestro, if you insist.”
Markal put a hand on his arm. “Despite Björn’s predilection for metaphors, this is no game we’ve embarked upon. We can’t predict every far-spiraling thread of the pattern we’ll all be working together. We cannot know the final image this tapestry will present to the world, to posterity.”
Arion’s expression sobered. “Even if it were only a game, I would take it no less seriously.” He shook his head and searched Markal’s gaze. “What is it you fear? Our success depends entirely on being courageous enough to do whatever it takes to achieve the effect we’ve envisioned, no matter where the path of the game takes us.”
Markal leaned back in his chair again. “Morality be damned?”
“You’re like a dog with a bone on this point,” Cristien groused. “The moral consequence is not as important as the ethical one. How can it be when we’re talking in terms of centuries? What’s important to one man in one lifetime is inconsequential when dealing with the future of the entire race.”
“Only the outcome matters, Maestro,” Arion said by way of agreement, “but that’s because we’re working for the greater good.” He sat back in his chair with a forceful exhale. “Look…I freely admit we could debate Balance versus morality until our beards turn white without ever reaching any definitive conclusion. But in the context of this game—his game—we’re working from a premise that means survival or destruction for every living being. This is the biggest game ever envisioned, the greatest challenge, with all the Realms of Light hanging in the balance. If we don’t adhere to the First Law—if we don’t have the courage to make sure we achieve the effect we intend, how can we ever hope to succeed?”
Arion glanced to Cristien. The truthreader nodded his agreement, his colorless gaze grave.
Markal shifted his brooding gaze to Cristien. “Forsaking anything to achieve your intended outcome?”
Arion pressed fingertips on the table. “Doing whatever is needed to accomplish our aims—because they are for the greater good. Never giving up on the effect we’ve decided upon until it’s achieved. We have to have that level of courageous causation from all of us to win this.”
Markal looked Arion over. His eyes were very dark. “I wonder if you really know what that means.”
“It means not one of us can waver from our commitment to him or to the game. Not ever, not for any reason.”
“Nor for anyone?” Markal challenged with an arched a brow. “And you think you’re prepared to make that vow?”
Arion held his gaze steadily. “To my last dying breath.”
Markal exhaled slowly. “Yes…that’s what worries me.”
*—*
Ean let out a shuddering breath and sank his forehead into his hands. Every memory of Arion’s was but a minute variation of another. Always the man was unshakable, determined, certain of his course and willing to do whatever it took. It was his mantra—as much as Markal pledged himself to method and order, Arion had defined himself by his outlook on courage.
Ean had no idea how he defined himself now.
Reckless and brash…what a poor investiture to be all that was left of the magnificent Arion Tavestra.
‘You put too much importance on the man you were and not enough on the one you are becoming.’
Isabel’s words. Would she have still betrayed him if he’d become the man she needed him to be?
Ean released elae and leaned his pounding head back against the wall. He meant to close his eyes for only a moment, but instead fell quickly asleep.
And with sleep, so came the dream…
*—*
Arion stood beneath the Citadel’s shattered dome holding his bloodied sword. All around him, the marble floor was a littered wasteland. Death’s unwholesome song filled the air as it made an evening meal of the innocent.
Arion’s hands and vambraces were slick with blood. None of it was his own, yet he felt as if most of the blood shed that night had belonged to him personally, so dear were the ones already lost.
He looked down upon the man dying at his feet: a Paladin Knight in shimmering, elae-enhanced armor. He’d come from Illume Belliel to claim Malachai ap’Kalien in the name of the C
ouncil of Realms—as if Malachai was fool enough to stay in Alorin…as if Björn would’ve let them take Malachai to suffer more injustice.
Arion dropped his chin to his chest and exhaled a tremulous breath.
What a travesty it had all become: the flag of their brilliant cause burned to bitter ash by Malachai’s war; the needless deaths of thousands of Adepts, and now these Paladin Knights, all of them misled—along with the rest of Alorin—so that the Council of Nine might have time to regroup and recover from the tragedy of Malachi’s madness; and lastly, but most germane to the fury that fed through Arion’s veins in that moment, this treacherous coup against Isabel, orchestrated by Dore Madden and his craven followers.
‘…the brave must ever face the hardest road. I would this bloody job did not fall to you, my brother, blood-of-my-heart.’
Björn’s words, spoken just before he and Cristien rushed off to confront the traitors who had attacked Isabel and then fled when justice arrived in the guise of the Fifth Vestal. Arion was determined it would not be the last thing he and Björn said to one another, despite Isabel’s foretelling.
He lifted his gaze back to the towering doors. It had taken him less time to slay a dozen Paladin Knights than it had to unwork Dore Madden’s binding on those doors.
Ever the vile man held a repertoire of debased and wicked patterns at the ready. Dore was ingeniously skilled at contorting the lifeforce into the worst manifestation of itself. That night he’d crafted patterns of the foulest intent and bound them with debased others, like razor wire, so that Arion had to bloody his honor just unworking them.
Now it was done. Arion scanned the currents one last time to be certain he’d found all of Dore’s traps. Then he sent a flow of the fifth to open the massive doors, shielded himself with the same, and moved through their shaded parting into the silent hall beyond.
The pentagonal Hall of Invocation with its hundred thrones and bands of jeweled windows remained serenely untouched by the battles raging elsewhere in Tiern’aval’s Citadel. Dore or some other had extinguished the wielder’s lamps that should’ve illuminated the glorious chamber, but Arion saw with the currents in any case.
Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4) Page 16
