Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  He studied the silver ley lines of T’khendar’s map with care, though he knew their pathways intimately by that time, due to his work with Dagmar.

  T’khendar was smaller than Alorin, but twice as many ley lines crisscrossed its globe. The First Lord and his Council of Nine had constructed the realm with the strength of a fortress, and a fortress it had become. But even the most stalwart fortress might fall beneath an overwhelming force.

  Björn touched one of the nodes on the glowing sphere, and the view zoomed in to magnify that one node and reveal its hundreds of leis, all of them as intricately connected as a spider’s funneling web.

  “Yes, I see where he’s found a weakness.” The First Lord’s cobalt gaze dissected the web of energy lines. “We can reinforce the weaker area by connecting these two nodes via a new webwork of leis,” and he pointed out the nodes in question to Ramu.

  Raine knuckled his chin. “Won’t that pull too much energy from the lower grid?”

  “I don’t think so.” Björn looked to Dagmar for his input.

  “Well, it shouldn’t…” Dagmar moved to stand beside Björn and assessed the grid from the same view.

  Franco watched the interchange feeling an odd duality of regret and hope.

  It had been part of his self-imposed penance to observe the slow decline of Adept arts—impotently, torturously, knowing he had with his own actions contributed to that unanticipated end.

  As an oak tree stung by lightning’s sharp bite, Alorin was taking a long time to die, but it was dying. In its withering, fewer Adepts Awakened each year. Far worse, increasingly smaller percentages of them trained in their craft. What knowledge had remained after the Wars grew musty from lack of use, and much had already been forgotten. Halls of heroes were pilfered for their ancient artifacts, but the thieves never understood that the real treasure had long been lost: the understanding of how to use those talismans of power.

  The weldmaps were a perfect example of this. The Espial’s Guild had housed the majority of their weldmaps in the Guild Hall on Tiern’aval. When the island had disappeared at the end of Malachai’s war, so vanished their maps. What charts remained were considered too priceless now to keep in regular use. The Guild kept them locked behind iron doors and trace seals, or beneath heavy glass cases, protected by patterns they no longer knew how to craft, the maps themselves little more than curiosities now to be observed or gloated over.

  In that regard, Niko had been going on and on about Dagmar’s weldmap and how he ought to have it now that he was to become the new Second Vestal. Franco understood why Niko wanted it—that is, he could think of a hundred reasons Niko might want it, but not a single one of them would be for the purpose of serving the realm.

  Yet to be fair, every Nodefinder coveted that piece of canvas. The Great Master’s legendary weldmap was said to be the last map in existence that showed not only Alorin’s welds but also the welds that connected each of the Thousand Realms of Light. Dagmar’s was the last virgin map, constructed in Alorin during the time known as The Before…a wilder time, when the Warlocks of Shadow still terrorized the Thousand Realms.

  Franco might’ve asked the Great Master for the truth—did the map in fact show the welds to all the worlds, even, some said, into Shadow itself? Did such actually even exist? There were many things he might’ve asked Dagmar, none of which he’d never been able to bring himself to ask.

  Yet, for some reason, seeing T’khendar’s map hovering there now gave Franco a renewed sense of hope he wasn’t sure he had any right to feel. But it served him to be reminded that not all knowledge had been lost when Tiern’aval fell: the Citadel library had been reconstructed in T’khendar’s city of Renato; Adept learning continued in Niyadbakir under the tutelage of the inimitable Markal Morrelaine; and the High Mage of the Citadel herself still gazed upon the stars of future to guide their course. With such personages manning the helm, surely all wasn’t lost?

  The others must’ve concluded their discussion while Franco was absorbed with these thoughts, for he came out of his internal reverie to find them all staring at him.

  “Well, Franco…” Björn pushed hands into his pockets and eyed him inquisitively, “if my oath-sister hasn’t released you, some compelling matter must’ve driven you to us. What news then from Illume Belliel?”

  Even though his first piece of news was old by gossip’s standards, Franco still had to force it out around a gag of his own incredulity. “My lords…” he ran his gaze around those assembled, “the Council of Realms has voted to enact a measure to allow interrealm trade.”

  He’d expected surprise, shock, disbelief perhaps. But his news met with a silence so complete, Franco thought he could almost hear individual grains of sand shifting in the desert far below.

  Dagmar turned a weighty gaze to Björn. “Then it’s begun.”

  “And long overdue,” Ramu rumbled.

  Raine sank back against a low cabinet and looked to Franco. “Who put the measure forth?”

  “The Speaker himself.”

  Raine let out a low whistle, while Dagmar muttered, “That was brave of him.”

  Franco paused his goblet halfway to his lips and lowered it again. “It’s odd, though.” He looked between the two vestals. “You’d think with a statute so momentous, the Speaker would want to share the burden of source—you’d think he wouldn’t want to make a target of himself—but despite huge pressure from the Council, he’s still refusing to name the Seat who initially wrote the measure.”

  Björn exchanged a voluminous look with Dagmar before shifting his gaze to Franco. “That’s because I wrote it.”

  Franco choked into his wine.

  Dagmar clapped him a few times on the back.

  With the spirit still flaming his throat, Franco managed hoarsely, “Forgive me, my lord.” He pushed the back of his hand against his mouth and stared at Björn. “But when? Three hundred years ago?”

  Björn arched resigned brows. “Give or take a few decades.”

  “This has been a long time in coming,” Ramu murmured. Dagmar grunted and walked to pour himself more wine.

  “Björn…” Raine’s cautionary tone called his oath-brother’s gaze to his. “You do of course realize that opening the realms to each other in any capacity necessarily opens them in every capacity. Granting such freedom to the realms challenges the Council’s very charter. There are a lot of vested interests who won’t be pleased about that.”

  “We all see it, Raine.” Dagmar leaned back against the wine cabinet and inspected the goblet in his hand as if seeing the distant cityworld in its reflection. “The Council has been restricting travel between the realms for millennia, and profiting immensely in the doing.”

  Raine shook his head. “I can’t believe they voted in favor of this. It goes against everything the Council has been pushing—centuries of duplicitous warnings against this very course. How did Aldaeon ever get the measure passed?”

  Franco fingered his goblet. “Alshiba said it was a near thing.”

  “Three hundred years of favors and blackmail stored in wait is my wager.” Dagmar drank his wine thoughtfully. “However he managed it, it’s about bloody time. But he’s made a fat target of himself in the offing.”

  Franco met the First Lord’s level gaze. “He’s asked Alshiba to head the committee to oversee the measure’s implementation.”

  Raine turned him a swift look of alarm. “She mustn’t!”

  “I fear she intends to accept, my lord.”

  “She’ll be a good choice if she can survive long enough to see it into action.” Dagmar sounded less than optimistic.

  Björn considered Franco over crossed arms and with the faintest of furrows between his brows. “She’ll need you now more than ever, Franco.”

  “You can’t let her do this, Björn.” Raine threw out a hand. “She’ll become the prime mark for every vested interest in the Thousand Realms!”

  Björn turned Raine a calm but penetrating look. “She’s t
he only one who can do it, Raine.”

  The truthreader’s expression hardened. “There are five thousand Adepts on that Council—”

  “But few with Alshiba’s strength of character,” Ramu pointed out.

  Björn still held Raine’s gaze. “Aldaeon wouldn’t have chosen Alshiba if he had a better candidate. He understands the danger he places her in.”

  Raine’s expression grew frustrated. “You know perfectly well that he chose Alshiba because of you—”

  “This is what we’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?” Dagmar’s question drew the First Lord’s gaze back to him.

  The faintest of contemplative smiles came to Björn’s lips. “Indeed, brother. Our first step towards a new tomorrow.” Then his smile fully manifested, and the glint of opportunity danced in his gaze. “Perhaps I should pay Aldaeon another visit.”

  “Epiphany bless us.” Raine gave Björn a look of tormented protest and sank down on the edge of the cabinet again. “Didn’t you say that Aldaeon put you in a celantia the last time you showed up in Illume Belliel?”

  “Only because it would have compromised his position to do otherwise.” Björn pushed his hands in his pockets. “It wasn’t personal, Raine.”

  “It would’ve felt fairly personal if the circumstances had required all of us to go to Illume Belliel to break you out of gaol.”

  Björn’s eyes glinted with humor. “I certainly would’ve enjoyed that rescue.”

  “So, what would be your rationale for going now?” Dagmar swirled his wine contemplatively around in his goblet. “Stir up the pot again and see what floats to the surface?”

  Björn shrugged. “Eventually they’ll have to follow me.”

  Dagmar grunted at this.

  Not understanding their obscure conversation anyway, Franco stood with conflict twisting in his gut. He knew Alshiba would not thank him for what he meant to do—Björn van Gelderan was absolutely the last man in the Thousand Realms Alshiba wanted to see—but he hoped she would forgive him for it.

  “Perhaps…while you’re there, my lord, you might pay a visit to the Alorin Seat as well?”

  Doubtless catching the concern beneath his words, Björn turned and fixed Franco with the razor point of his attention. “Please explain what you mean by this, Franco.”

  Franco downed the last of his wine and winced as he lowered the goblet. “I think someone is poisoning her.”

  “Poison.” Raine sounded alarmed.

  Franco glanced to the Fourth Vestal and then back to Björn, trying not to cringe beneath the intensity of his gaze. “She said she started feeling ill soon after Niko and I arrived in Illume Belliel. The cityworld’s Healers told her that her pattern was frayed, but they couldn’t Heal it…or else something is fighting their Healing. She’s losing weight, she says she can’t sleep…” Franco looked down at his empty goblet, feeling an odd emptiness equally inside himself. “My lord…I fear for her.”

  “I mislike the sound of this so-called illness,” Ramu rumbled.

  Björn cast him a sidelong eye. “You and me both, my friend.”

  “What are you thinking?” Dagmar crossed arms before his broad chest. “Mor’alir?”

  “Or inverteré.” Björn narrowed his gaze thoughtfully. “Either or both.”

  “There’s something else, my lord.” Franco stared into his goblet, really wishing he had more wine. “Niko claims he’s found a candidate to replace you as the Fifth Vestal.”

  At this, Björn looked to Dagmar and exchanged a long, silent look. The two of them ever seemed to hold their own conversation within any larger one, with just their gazes speaking in a private subtext.

  Raine grunted dubiously. “Alshiba would never consider replacing you.” Yet a deep furrow marred his brow.

  “Which will only place her in danger from the factions driving Niko,” Ramu noted. “They may already be the ones at work against her.”

  Sill holding Björn’s gaze, Dagmar murmured, “She’s going to have them coming at her from all sides.”

  Raine shook his head, seeming conflicted. “We should go back.”

  “Nay, brother.” Dagmar lifted a finger off his goblet and pointed at him. “It’s easier to protect one person than three, and we’re very much needed here.”

  Raine leveled him a heated look. “We’re very much needed there!”

  “Illume Belliel will fall,” Björn exhaled a heavy sigh and pushed hands into his pockets again, “but the cityworld can be restored. If T’khendar falls, all is lost.”

  He began walking beside the table. “Alshiba is the one I’m the most concerned about, the only one who still doesn’t know she’s a Player—the sole Player on a field stacked against her.”

  “First Lord,” Franco inquired quietly, “can’t you just…tell her?”

  Björn looked to him with soft apology in his gaze. “It’s a peculiar aspect of this game, Franco: you can’t tell a person they’re a Player and have it be so. They have to realize it for themselves and choose their own positions.” He touched the onyx table and dismissed the glowing sphere from above it. “Any time I’ve tried assigning someone a Player’s role, they’ve never found their way onto the field.”

  Dagmar gave a resigned shrug. “You and Arion set up the game that way.”

  Björn gazed across the table at him. “There was no other way to do it—not and have any hope of winning. A field rotating on Balance’s pin, as like to fall in any direction? Everyone has to play their positions.”

  Dagmar waved towards the desert. “Maybe stirring up the pot is exactly what we need. We all expected them to be here by now.” He looked Björn up and down. “How does the timing feel to you?”

  Björn’s gaze danced. “Provident.”

  “Well then,” Dagmar saluted him and drank his wine, as if this answered everything.

  Björn shifted his gaze to Raine, clearly seeking his thoughts.

  Raine exhaled resignedly. “You know what’s best.”

  Björn gave him a dubious grin. “Do you really believe that?”

  “I believe you know it better than I do,” the truthreader grumbled. “Go then, and find out who’s working their foul craft against our oath-sister.”

  Björn nodded solemnly to him. “You may depend upon it, Raine.” Then he cast his cobalt gaze across the rest of them, smiled in farewell, and took his leave.

  When the First Lord had vanished down the steps leading to the nodecourt, Dagmar raised his goblet to Franco by way of gaining his attention. “How long do we have until Alshiba comes searching for her favorite deputy vestal?”

  Franco walked to refill his goblet. “She’ll be in a Council meeting until late tonight.”

  Dagmar extended the decanter by way of offering Franco more wine. “That should give you enough time to visit Carian in the Cairs.” As he poured, he said with a meaningful look, “Let me tell you what’s been happening since you left…”

  Franco stepped off the node in Rethynnea’s Guild Hall and blinked against the bright light of midday. The sun had been setting as he’d left T’khendar, so the stark daylight of the white-walled city felt sharp against his eyes. The two realms were never quite time-coincident, no matter what part of Alorin he was coming or going from.

  “Good day, gov’nor,” said a male voice from behind him. Franco turned to see an armed guard approaching. “Might I see your papers—oh,” he drew up short and promptly ducked a retreating bow. “I didn’t recognize Your Excellency at first.”

  Franco wondered how the guard had recognized him at all.

  The latter nudged his cap in a casual salute, added, “A good day to you then,” and retreated into the shadows.

  Franco watched him walking away with a faint frown narrowing his brow. Then he turned and headed down a cloistered walkway towards the exit.

  The sun accosted him again as he emerged into a wide piazza bustling with activity. He pushed a hand over his eyes and scanned the busy square, searching for Carian vran Lea’s tellta
le mane and wishing the pirate had chosen somewhere less populated to meet.

  “Admiral?”

  Franco winced at the address, while at the same time wishing he hadn’t been so certain the voice was addressing him.

  He turned to find a waif of a boy looking up at him; large, dark eyes staring from an elfin face. The lad seemed about as disreputable as any child could aspire to be—a street urchin of the commonest sort, the type liable to pick your pockets and scamper off if you so much as scratched your nose. Barefooted and dirty, he wore a pair of ragged britches and a beaded Khurdish vest that he’d probably stolen right off a drunken man’s back.

  The boy grinned, proudly displaying a broken front tooth. “It is you, ain’t it, Admiral?” His words were shaped with the street brogue common in those parts. “The Cap’n said you’d come ’ventually.”

  Franco peered at him while reassuring himself that his purse was safely inside his coat. “Who said?”

  “The pirate—Cap’n vran Lea? Says I’m to bring you to ’im. Offered me a crown for me efforts.”

  “Is that so?”

  The urchin grinned. “Said you’d give me the same.”

  Franco sighed. “I’ll bet he did.”

  “Will you come, General?”

  “It’s Admir—oh, never mind. Yes, I’ll come.” Franco motioned him to lead away. As they were heading across the piazza, he thought again about the Guild’s guard recognizing him and inquired of the lad, “How did you know me?”

  “The Cap’n told me what ye look like, Admiral.”

  Franco could only imagine the description Carian vran Lea might’ve given of him. “Indeed? What did he say?”

  The boy flashed a mischievous grin. “Said ye’d be the handsomest man I’d ever seen.”

  Franco’s gaze narrowed. “I highly doubt he said that.”

  “Then ’e said to keep a weather eye for a man who looked like ’e grew up with a noble name but walked like a man who’d traded it away.”

  Franco frowned at this uncomfortable description. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Carian giving it to a street child—or to anyone for that matter. “What else did he say?”