No…Björn’s and Arion’s game. He had to remember that.
Ean straightened and turned to his brother. “Do you think I’m making the wrong decision, going to Tambarré?”
Sebastian puffed a forceful sigh. “No. I don’t entirely agree with this course, but I support the rationale for why it’s necessary.” He wandered across the room towards the glass doors and Ean’s balcony. “But I’ve been thinking.”
Ean followed him with his gaze. “About Tambarré?”
Sebastian turned him a telling look. “About choices.” He crossed his arms and leaned one shoulder against the armoire. Beyond the mullioned glass, the barest lightening in the eastern sky bespoke the coming dawn. “We choose in every moment how to react to the things done to us. In every moment, Ean.” He puffed out his breath and turned his gaze outside. “Every day I wake up and choose not to let Dore’s degradation define me now. Every day I have to fight against those memories. Every single morning I push them off and decide to live the life I’ve chosen, not one Dore fashioned for me.”
Ean groaned and sank down onto the bed. “This is about Isabel.”
“I can’t let it go, Ean—I can’t let you go without speaking my mind.”
Ean felt defeated already. He waved to his brother to say what he would.
Sebastian pushed off the armoire and wandered about the room. “All night I’ve been thinking…if you truly love Isabel,” and he glanced up under his brows to emphasize his point, “if you love her, Ean, shouldn’t you be thinking of what she went through, at least in part? It seems to me that if you were thinking of her instead of yourself—thirteen hells, you should be filled with gratitude that she’s alive!”
He sank down abruptly on the edge of a chair, leaned forward and rested elbows on his knees to better view Ean eye to eye. “Think on it, little brother: Isabel threw herself in Darshan’s path to keep him from finding you. She gave herself up to become a prisoner of the Prophet, a Malorin’athgul—and thank Epiphany he gave her to his brother Pelas, because he could’ve given her to Dore!”
A chill pealed down Ean’s spine at this heretofore unconsidered idea. He stared at Sebastian, feeling suddenly ill.
“Yes, you see it now too, don’t you?” A sort of latent horror came into Sebastian’s gaze as well. “Isabel knowingly sacrificed herself to save you, Ean.” He fell backwards in the chair and grabbed the arms, as if to steel himself against the same convulsive truth. “If I were you, I would be immensely relieved that the woman I love is alive and well and not under a madman’s control…not mutilated beyond a few scars.”
You didn’t see the patterns carved all over her body.
But Ean kept this ungracious response to himself.
He pulled his sword onto his lap and fingered the sapphire pommel stone, wishing it didn’t remind him so much of his past mistakes and other things he would rather not think on.
Sebastian was regarding him with a restless unease, as if the words he wanted to say made the chair hot beneath his seat. “Yes, she betrayed you, but what about this love you supposedly bear for her?” Sebastian pushed from his chair. “This boundless love isn’t enough to forgive her for walking her path? At least Isabel found a way ultimately to survive it. Could Arion say the same?”
Ean glared darkly down at his sword.
Sebastian came over and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I have to say these things. I have to have a clean conscience letting you go, little brother. I was there when Isabel said goodbye. I saw the look on her face.” He squeezed Ean’s shoulder. “Besides…I don’t know when I’ll see you again…if I’ll see you again.”
Ean lifted him a tormented look. “Don’t say such things.”
Sebastian shrugged. “If it’s not you death claims, it could be me.” He pushed hands in his pockets and gazed off towards the coming dawn. “I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve got this brief calm before the storm. Any day now it could hit.”
Ean couldn’t help but wonder if the actions he was about to take in Tambarré would be that beginning, but he kept this thought to himself as well.
“I’d best get going.” He stood and donned his jacket and cloak and belted on his sword. Yet now that it was time to take leave of each other, he found it agonizing to part with his brother. He took Sebastian by the shoulders and then embraced him. “I’m so grateful for you,” he confessed.
“And I for you, little brother.” Sebastian gave Ean an encouraging smile that didn’t quite banish the concern from his gaze. “Come. I’ll walk you to the node.”
Ean took up his pack, and they departed.
It seemed only minutes before they reached Andorr’s nodecourt. Ean walked to the center of the tiled space and summoned the patterns he needed to travel on the Pattern of the World.
Then, with a last look of farewell that roused a deep uncertainty, he lifted a hand to Sebastian, watched his brother lift his in return, and stepped onto the node.
Twenty-three
“Never try to teach a bear to sing. It only frustrates you and really annoys the bear.”
–The Hearthwitch’s Handbook
Tanis woke to the sound of thunder. Rising from a large four-poster bed, he walked to the windows and pushed aside the drapes to gaze out over—
Gone were the mountains of yesterday. Now he looked out from the stern stateroom of a massive ship, if told from the size of the ever-expanding wake it was leaving in the charcoal sea. The waves undulating behind them wore shades of ash, with variegated spots of blue in places where the sunlight still peeked through the turbulent clouds. They were sailing upon choppy waves, but Tanis felt no motion—the only indication that the world he looked upon was actually Sinárr’s illusion.
Tanis gazed at the rain-washed sea with a furrow marring his brow. He couldn’t help wondering if the night had been allowed to run its course, or if Sinárr had merely created the illusion of night, when in fact the time had passed in a blink. What if the night had not been at all? Had he actually left Sinárr only seconds ago, yet was being made to believe he’d gone to bed and woken as if to a normal dawn? Was Sinárr able to alter Tanis’s thoughts about his experience as easily as he molded the experience itself?
It was unsettling to contemplate, and probably unproductive, so Tanis turned his mind to more important matters, like the fact that he was terribly hungry. Whatever else Sinárr might be manipulating, he knew that feeling was real.
A knock on his door drew his gaze, and Mérethe entered, carrying a tray. She wore a navy dress that seemed appropriate to their maritime surroundings, with a split skirt and an open neckline that highlighted her shoulders. A strand of pearls collared her neck.
She smiled and balanced the tray on her hip as she pulled the stateroom door closed. “Good morning, Tanis.”
“Is it morning?” He gave her an unconvinced look. “I wish I could be sure. But it’s nice to see you, Mérethe, whatever the time of day.”
“Surely you’re too young to be so charming.” She gave him a sidelong glance while setting the tray down on a table by the windows. “Sinárr thought you might be hungry.”
Tanis eyed the domed platter. “He did, did he?”
Mérethe straightened and pressed out her skirt. “It’s difficult to hide things from him in his own universe.”
Tanis walked over and lifted the silver dome to find an assortment of savory tarts, sausages and pies. He was so hungry, he didn’t care if they were real or not. He set the dome aside. “Will you break your fast with me, Mérethe?”
She cast an uneasy look back at the door. “I…don’t think I should.”
Tanis pulled out a chair for her. “Why did he send you with my food if he didn’t expect us to talk?”
Mérethe kneaded her fingers as she considered him, her blue eyes round with uncertainty. But eventually she sat in the chair he was holding out for her.
Tanis walked around the table and seated himself, observing Mérethe as she served herself a tiny portion of f
ood. He wished she would’ve taken more. She looked perilously thin.
Tanis reached for the teapot to pour some tea, and—
Froze with his fingers around the handle. Where had the teapot come from? He couldn’t recall noticing it until he’d expected it to be there.
Shaking off this unsettling experience, Tanis went ahead and poured tea for both of them. “Has Sinárr told you much about the Warlocks or their history?”
She nibbled at a piece of toast she’d chosen. “Some.”
“Did he ever tell you why he models his world after Alorin?”
Mérethe looked at the toast in her hand as if concerned it might become something else. “I never thought to ask him.”
Tanis shoved half of a piece of quiche into his mouth. It tasted of sage, mushroom and leeks. How does he do this? Sinárr even made things taste like they were supposed to! For a moment, the immensity of this simple point fully unnerved him. Then Tanis decided he didn’t care and ate the other half.
“Warlocks…” he reached for another piece of quiche, “they seem nearly godlike.” He considered Mérethe quietly while she ate. “For all intents and purposes, in Shadow, they are gods. Don’t you think that’s true, Mérethe?”
Mérethe nibbled fretfully at her toast.
“I’ve been wondering, did our Maker create the Warlocks the same as He created the other immortal races—drachwyr, zanthyrs…Malorin’athgul?”
She set down her toast, still barely touched, and rested her hands in her lap. “I don’t know, Tanis.”
Tanis scrubbed at the scruff on his chin and tried to think the idea through. “It follows that our Maker created them. But if He did, why did He create them?”
Mérethe gave him a hollow look. “Perhaps they balance something. Isn’t that the reason for most everything?”
“Yes,” Tanis sat back in his chair and frowned, “that’s what I’ve been struggling with.” He looked at her significantly. “But here’s the thing: when the Maker created the Realms of Light, Mérethe, He gave the Warlocks access to them.”
Which begged the immediate question: What has the Council of Realms unbalanced by denying Warlocks access to the Realms of Light for all these centuries?
Mérethe was making knots of her fingers in her lap.
Tanis leaned to try to capture her gaze. “What do you know of the Council of Realms? Has Sinárr told you anything about what happened between the Council and the Warlocks of Shadow? There must’ve been some conflict. Surely he shared something with you about it?”
Mérethe’s gaze flicked to him and back to her hands. “I think the problem centered on the inverteré patterns the Warlocks use. That is…from the way Sinárr speaks of it, inverteré patterns are native to Warlocks in the same way elae’s patterns are innate to Adepts. When they work their power in the Realms of Light, Warlocks twist elae into an inversion of itself.” She glanced up uncertainly at him. “You mention Balance, Tanis, but when the Warlocks were in Alorin, there was no Balance in the realm. They subjugated the races of man to cruel whimsy and enslaved Adepts to their will like toys. They made men do frightful things.”
“Yes, I’ve heard the stories.”
Mérethe stared brokenly at him. “I wish I could help you, Tanis, but I don’t really know anything more. He’s never spoken to me the way he speaks to you.”
Tanis exhaled a slow breath while he considered the Avieth. She’d clearly suffered so much already, he didn’t want to make things worse by pressing her for information, but there were so many things he needed to understand. He felt once again as if he stood on the verge of some important truth, yet no matter how he strained to grasp it, the ledge of understanding remained just out of his reach.
Frustrated with himself as much as the situation, Tanis pushed out of his chair, shoved hands in his pockets—wait, pockets?—and wandered over to the mullioned windows.
The storm had completely overtaken the day. Now ashen sheets of rain striped the sea. He watched a heavier line of pelting raindrops coming towards them across white-capped waves, but all he really saw was the nebulous outline he’d formed in his mind. He kept trying to fit the pieces he knew into this outline, but none of them had the proper shape.
“Tanis?”
He turned Mérethe an inquiring look.
“Most of us don’t realize how much our senses frame our belief of what is real.” She dropped her gaze back to her lap and absently traced a damask design on the tablecloth with her forefinger. “We think if our bodies can feel it, it’s real. Sinárr knows this.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and braved a worried glance at him. “All of this is illusion.”
It seemed an important truth to her, but Tanis had already reached his own conclusion about reality. He leaned his shoulder against the window sash and regarded Mérethe steadily. “If Sinárr’s illusions can feel as solid and real as our own world, Mérethe, who’s to say that Alorin wasn’t formed in exactly the same manner?”
She looked terrified by this idea.
“Yesterday…” Tanis paused, grimaced, corrected himself, “well, whenever it was that I last saw Sinárr, he claimed that reality is basically what we have agreed that it is. The Esoterics even support this idea.”
He’d realized this truth as he’d been lying in bed, pondering his conversation with Sinárr. “The Twenty-First Esoteric says: Reality is monitored by collective thought agreement. I had always interpreted this Esoteric in reference to the crafting of fourth-strand illusions, but it’s clear that the Esoterics apply to the wielding of any energy, in any realm.”
Tanis pushed off the window and walked back towards the Avieth. “By this logic, Mérethe, Alorin is no more and no less real than Sinárr’s world—save that more of us have agreed on its existence.”
Mérethe dropped her gaze back to her lap and her voice to a bare whisper. “You shouldn’t say such things, Tanis.”
“Mérethe, why?” He couldn’t understand why she was so focused on making him believe that Sinárr’s world was only an illusion.
She flung a desperate look at him. “Because…” but her voice broke, and she dropped her gaze again. Tears welled in her eyes and then fell down her cheeks. “Because…he will make you forget what is real.”
Tanis placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
“The people you love,” she whispered brokenly, “the places you hold dear, the things and ideas that meant something to you—you’ll turn your back on all of them. You’ll forsake them for the illusions he panders.”
Tanis had no doubt this had been her experience, though it made him wonder…
He crouched in front of her seated form. “Mérethe, when we met in the laboratory in Alorin, you told me that Sinárr would make me eidola, like the others.” He put his hands on the arms of her chair. “What others? Has he brought others here?”
Mérethe wiped at her eyes. “Most Adepts cannot survive in Shadow for more than a day or two, even bound to a Warlock. This much he told me.”
Most Adepts… Tanis filed this information for later investigation. “But he’s made eidola out of other Adepts?”
Mérethe cast a nervous look at the door as if it was the ear of Sinárr’s mind. “He’s made no eidola for himself that I know of, but…I think he’s made eidola for the Malorin’athgul—or helped him in some way.”
“For Shail?”
She nodded.
Tanis wondered grimly if Malin van Drexel was one of those unfortunates. Then he asked the question he’d been leading up to. “But he didn’t make eidola of you.”
Mérethe exhaled a tremulous breath. “He brought me here to be his concubine,” she lifted him a look of dread, “like you.”
“Yes, like me.” Tanis made a face. He squatted on his heels, thinking about the idea. Sinárr seemed to have a different concept of a concubine from how Tanis thought of the term. Perhaps the subservient aspect was the same, but Sinárr’s interest wasn’t sexual—leastwise not towards him.
; Tanis pushed to his feet and returned to his chair. Leaning back, he gazed off at distant shapes, trying to focus on the ideas that refused to combine into the answers he was seeking.
After a while, he shifted his eyes back to the Avieth. “What’s he waiting for?”
Mérethe gave him a startled, doe-eyed look.
Tanis cast a narrow stare off towards the door, just in case Mérethe knew something about it that he didn’t. “Sinárr brought me here; he knows I can’t escape. He could bind me at any time.” He looked back to her. “Why hasn’t he?”
Mérethe stared at him.
Tanis made his tone more gentle. “Is this how it happened for you?”
She pressed her lips together tightly and shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes again.
Tanis exhaled a breath of frustration. He settled a steely gaze on the door. If you’re listening, Sinárr, I would that you answered my questions yourself.
Instantly two light raps came. The page boy from yesterday opened the door and stood in the portal. “Would you accompany me, my lord?”
Tanis glanced down at his clothing, thinking he would need to dress, and found that Sinárr had already taken care of that.
Something in this disturbed him, but it took him a moment to put his finger on why. He shifted his gaze back to Mérethe and her navy dress. He’d assumed that she’d chosen it herself; now he suspected otherwise.
Suddenly, this seemed terribly relevant. In the next instant, he understood why.
The Esoterics taught that a wielder must operate at a level of ‘prime cause.’ The moment a wielder allowed another’s intention to direct or alter his own, he violated the First Law: KNOW the effect you intend to create.
Arion had often written in his journals about the importance of a wielder knowing exactly what effect he wanted to create; equally important was the follow-through to achieve that postulated effect. No wielder could succeed who allowed another to make decisions for him.
That’s when Tanis understood a devastating truth. How long had it been since Mérethe had been allowed to make her own decisions? How long had Sinárr been moving her about, dressing her as he willed, feeding her what he chose, placing her in time and space like a doll with no thoughts of her own? And how long could a living being endure such treatment, even gently exacted, without losing a grasp upon their own will and sense of self?
Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4) Page 36
