Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  “In Shadow, yes, but to forge them here requires time we may not have.”

  “How not?” The Warlock studied him with his glimmering gaze. “Time bends to your will.”

  “Balance bends to my will.” Shail gave a flickering smile. “Time is less malleable.”

  “A distinct disadvantage of this plane, I’ve noticed.”

  “Dore has made these eidola with one of the new patterns. I’m testing others as well—patterns that will allow us to convert humans in as little as a few turnings of an hourglass. The supply would be nearly endless.”

  “Eidola are endless.”

  “In Shadow, Vleydis. In the Realms of Light, if you send your eidola into battle, you’ll be losing strength with every harvester slain. I’m devising patterns that will create pawns who can draw upon the power of Shadow for animation but won’t deplete your power if destroyed.”

  “Intriguing.” The Warlock’s eyes gleamed with dark possibility. “I would be interested in exploring the advantages of such pawns.”

  “They will be my gift to you, once perfected.”

  The smoky planes of Vleydis’s face reshaped themselves into an expression of skeptical surprise. “And what do you ask in exchange for so unique a gift?”

  Shail clasped hands behind his back. “A trifling thing,” his lips twitched with an almost smile, humorless and cold, “a matter of some framed space in Shadow to create as I will.”

  “As you will…” the Warlock’s tone held a sharp curl of amusement.

  “I have need of a repository for some artifacts that have outlived their usefulness.”

  Vleydis gave a low chuckle. Mist rippled in waves beneath his laughter. “Artifacts. A curious descriptor.” He looked Shail over with his eyes of crystallized darkness. “You would have the space connect to Wylde, I presume.”

  “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “It is no trouble for me, Shailabanáchtran.”

  “I am fain to hear it.” Shail began strolling the cavern’s edge. “How go things in Wylde?”

  The Warlock followed, a dark pillar trailing smoking wings. “The others are beginning their exits from the world, as planned. But I must tell you, this act will not be well received if they cannot gain the access you’ve promised them.”

  “Have I ever failed you?”

  “No…” yet his tone hinted of hesitation, “but you promise a thing we’ve failed to accomplish for millennia. Many believe it cannot be done.”

  Shail arched a derisive brow.

  “Some of us have strongly expressed concerns, especially in light of your brother.”

  Shail’s derision became a sneer.

  Vleydis looked him over speculatively. “You dismiss our concerns, yet Rafael has taught Pelasommáyurek much of Shadow—much of us. One or both of them could upset our plans.”

  “I have already taken care of Pelas. He won’t be a hindrance to us. Rafael, I leave to you.”

  “You speak with such certainty, Shailabanáchtran, but the only certainty in the mortal universe is its unpredictability. How exactly have you—”

  Shail raised a hand to pause Vleydis’s inquiry. He’d noticed a new strain upon the roiling tide, a different form of abhorrent mutation, and it was approaching rapidly.

  Dore Madden came scurrying around the corner. He drew up short, rearing back his head. “My lord.” He licked his lips. His eyes flicked to Vleydis and back again. “You’ve come.”

  Shail eyed him with disdainful reproach. “I am not a dog to be summoned, Dore Madden.”

  “I would’ve come to you readily, my lord, but your brother…” Dore looked between the two immortals uneasily. He ever seemed a hyena waiting for the right moment to dart in between the lions and steal its bit of carrion flesh. “You should know what’s happening with your brother.”

  Shail crossed arms before his red silk robes and stared down his nose at the wielder. “And what, pray, is happening with my brother?”

  “He’s ordered me to stay here until the eidola are out of conversion.”

  “And for this umbrage you’ve interrupted me from my important work?”

  “No, of course not, my lord. I only say this that you might note the symptom of your brother’s change.” Dore shuffled before them. “Something has changed mightily with him, my lord. He refuses to make any more eidola. He won’t even speak now of the army he once promised. He’s turning away every initiate from his temple. He will make no more Marquiin.”

  Shail’s gaze tightened. The vast loom of his plans was weaving at a rapid pace, combining multiple fibers into one masterful pattern, but Darshan could still upset his fine cloth if he decided to interfere.

  It didn’t surprise him that his older brother had grown disinterested in masquerading as the Prophet Bethamin; it only surprised him it had taken Darshan so long to tire of it. And yet, if Darshan’s interest had at last strayed elsewhere, it begged the question: where had it turned?

  One possibility Shail found particularly unpalatable was the idea that Darshan had discovered the truth behind his and Dore’s actions all these years. In Pelas’s tower, he’d certainly appeared suspicious—no thanks to Pelas for that inconvenience. But if Darshan had finally roused to the truth…well, it could prove problematic. How problematic depended on how much of the truth Darshan had intuited.

  Shail leveled his cold-eyed gaze on Dore. “If my brother ever realizes that you’ve been lying to him all these years, he will incinerate you from the aether.”

  Dore gave a sort of unctuous quiver. “My lord…” the eyes darted to Vleydis, but the Warlock would offer no safe harbor. “My lord, you know I’ve only ever done what you told me to do. Every pattern you bade me give to your brother, every command you issued—even to the compulsion placed on Pelasommáyurek at your suggestion—I have followed your orders always to the letter!”

  Shail’s upper lip lifted in a contemptuous curl. This servile act of Dore’s might’ve fooled Darshan, who expected men to cower in his presence, but Shail simply found it repugnant. “Cease this quivering charade, Dore Madden,” upon which utterance Dore froze instantly. “Does my brother trust you still or not? This is what we must assess.”

  Dore stared at him out of the shadowed canyon of his eyes. Then his expression curdled. “I do not know.” He spun and paced a short line before Shail and Vleydis, hands behind his back, bony shoulders slouching forward. “His mind is elsewhere. He can no longer be led.”

  Shail’s gaze became very, very dark. “That is a pity.”

  Dore flung a black glare at him. “It’s that truthreader, his once acolyte—he’s still fixated with him, I vow. Since Kjieran van Stone died, your brother has grown increasingly distant. I cannot make him focus on anything of importance to us. We never should have advised him to make the acolyte into eidola. I knew it was a bad idea—we should have eliminated the man, as I advised.”

  Shail flicked at a speck on his robe. “You said Kjieran van Stone couldn’t be trusted. You said my brother favored him above all and was seeking a way to bind with him. Making the truthreader into eidola solved both of these problems, while strapping Kjieran to your table would only have enraged my brother.”

  Dore grumbled, “My lord, he would never have known—”

  “Be that as it may,” Shail looked indifferently back to the dying men littering the cavern floor, “that the solution didn’t result to your advantage is hardly a concern of mine. I merely gave you the patterns to forge Darshan’s troth with his beloved truthreader.”

  Dore stared at him for a moment’s pause, then he spun to pace back in the opposite direction. “But you must advise me more carefully next time—you admit it, my lord.” He thrust a glare at him. “This ultimately worked to neither of our aims.”

  Shail arched resigned brows. “You may be right.” He glanced to Vleydis and started strolling again. He would’ve preferred the Warlock hadn’t learned these truths, and yet…if events proceeded as Shail was beginning to thi
nk they would, the Warlocks would understand his need for the framed space in Wylde—and be in agreement with his particular use for it.

  He drew a gilded feather from within his sleeve and spun it between his thumb and fingertips. “Both Darshan and Pelas have become afflicted by the same corruptive malady spread by the creatures of this world.” He flicked a contemptuous gaze from Vleydis to Dore. “That’s the trouble with this pestilence you humans call love. It befouls everything it touches; it twists men’s minds to serve only its desires. Even gods are not immune to it.” He plucked at the feather’s shaft with his thumbnail, his gaze remote.

  “But what do we do, my lord?” Dore shook his head from side to side. “His mind is set. He won’t make the army.” Dore flung a look at him. “I need that army!”

  “And I need Dagmar Ranneskjöld’s weldmap!” Shail’s words reverberated in the cavern, casting sharp waves through the currents. He speared Dore with those words as well as with his gaze, grounding the man to a quivering halt as by a spear thrust suddenly and forcefully into the dirt. “The avenue of our bargain runs two ways, Dore Madden.”

  Dore flinched away. “Yes-yes, of course, my lord. Niko van Amstel is—”

  “An incompetent. Don’t attempt to saddle me with the burden of his ineptitude. I need the map and I need the portal open to me. Make it so.” The currents rippled away from him, serrated saws of warning. He did not have to say, ‘or face the consequences,’ for Dore knew well enough what he would face if he failed.

  Dore ducked his white-haired head and made sniveling remarks of contrition.

  Shail regarded him circumspectly. With Dore, as with any wild animal, obedience was gained through a careful meting of punishment and reward; yet he had to be discerning. Dore only ever fought when cornered and then with the vicious desperation of a creature intent on surviving at any cost. Too much threat would only make the man turn tail and flee…but if empowered in the shadows, his malevolent ingenuity knew no bounds.

  Dore glared unhappily at his feet, a resentful dog brought to heel. “And what of my army, my lord?”

  Shail considered him. Dore had proven useful over the years—verily, his unrelenting fixation on Arion Tavestra had served Shail’s purposes well—but now he wondered if the man’s usefulness had permanently waned.

  And yet…

  This army Dore craved might serve to claim the proverbial two birds with one stone—or pattern, as it were. The more the idea spiraled into shape, the more he liked its potential ramifications.

  Shail smirked at the thought. Ever Balance’s malleable flesh shifted beneath his intent; ever it opened itself to him, a wanton whore desirous of his impaling will. He turned and strode from the cavern, trailing a smoking Warlock and a frenzied wielder.

  “If my brother is so fixated on his dead truthreader that he can no longer be led, let us disregard him altogether.” He arched a sardonic brow. “The ship sails as well with or without a figurehead.”

  Dore shuffled along behind them in Vleydis’s misting wake. “But how will I make an eidola army without your brother to bind them, my lord?”

  Shail clasped hands behind his back and continued walking. “I’ve been testing a new matrix of patterns that combines inverteré and elae together and balances their opposing natures.”

  “Inverteré…”

  “With these patterns, you might make a man eidola while maintaining his own essence. Thus you would have no need for my brother’s immediate involvement.”

  Dore looked riveted by the idea. “The body will change without experiencing death?”

  “The body will undergo a metamorphosis that ceases just shy of death; for a time, the eidola can subsist on what remains of its own lifeforce. Eventually they will need to be bound to an immortal to remain animated, but they will serve us before this end. The Pattern of Changing requires the same catalysts as any binding and need not involve my brother directly.” Verily, Shail could’ve done it himself—or Vleydis could have, for that matter—but Shail would face unmaking before he’d bind such a revolting creature as an eidola to his own lifeforce. “You’ll find converts for such an army in ample supply.”

  Dore waxed a cadaverous grin. Shail hadn’t seen the man exhibit such malevolent excitement since the days of their mutual plot against the High Mage of the Citadel.

  He strode on with quiet satisfaction. And when Darshan discovers you’ve made an eidola army without his consent, his fury will be in ample supply.

  “I will devise a diversion to call your Prophet away,” Shail drawled the word contemptuously. “Be ready in that moment to fashion this army. It must be done in the shadow of Darshan’s distraction.”

  “I shall set preparations into motion at once, my lord.” Dore bowed and departed.

  Shail watched the wielder walking away and shook his head. They make it so easy.

  Then he bade farewell to Vleydis, tore the fabric of the world with a thought, and departed back to his own affairs.

  Twenty-six

  “There is no greater shield than a man’s untarnished honor.”

  –Rhys val Kincaide, Captain of the King’s Own Guard

  King Gydryn val Lorian entered the hall with his arm wrapped around his treasured middle son, still overwhelmed by the impossible truth of Trell’s survival and even more by the fact of his presence at his side.

  That his princely son had formed his own allegiances during their years apart hardly surprised him, though he admitted a certain bemusement upon learning that Trell had sworn an oath in service of the Vestal Björn van Gelderan. Nevertheless, his son lived! What could truly trouble him in light of such a blessing?

  In an era where enemies welcomed each other as friends, Gydryn was beginning to see—nay, to repeatedly realize—that few things were as they appeared. Kjieran van Stone had been transformed into a monster, yet he’d saved Gydryn’s life. Against all odds, his men had fled supposedly friendly garrisons to find shelter within hostile territory, and the man he’d thought was his gravest enemy had dauntlessly dragged him back from death’s door.

  In view of these truths, perhaps Björn van Gelderan was also not as the world believed him to be. Most suggestive of this was Trell himself. Gydryn had already observed the cloak of honor draping his son; he knew Trell would not have sworn himself to anyone undeserving of his support.

  Ah, Trell…Gydryn let out a slow exhale and shook his head, what tragic and confusing roads we’ve traveled to reach this point together!

  Could it be true that Trell regretted no part of his journey? Gydryn was only now starting to see how it might be possible. Surely he better appreciated—even welcomed—the vagaries of life for having so nearly lost his own.

  And Trell…he had clearly traversed a gauntlet and emerged—well, if not unscathed, at least with his conscience intact, which was the most any good man could hope for.

  Gydryn tightened his arm around his son’s strong shoulders, treasuring the contact, and walked with him into a pentagonal hall. Huge canvas maps concealed the mosaic walls, seeming garish and ill-placed beneath the chamber’s elegant dome. It struck Gydryn how desperate war made men, driving them to deface such artistry with rough charts marking death’s passage across the land.

  Trell went immediately to a large map that dominated an oblong table in the room’s center. Prime Minister al Basreh and Prince Farid were already standing over it.

  The Akkadian prince nodded to Trell by way of welcome, his dark eyes just barely hinting of an affection that Gydryn saw mirrored in Trell’s own gaze; yet Gydryn noticed also a voluminous warning in Farid’s meaningful look.

  While Gydryn was wondering what ill news Farid was harboring, Zafir walked around the map table and stood behind its western edge. Markers of varying colors studded the canvas, ostensibly representing the locations of each kingdom’s forces.

  “Gydryn, please allow me to begin with a summary of our positions. These markers show the location of your men,” and he indicated the blue markers
congregated at the northwestern edge of the mountains, near where the lines between kingdoms became blurred.

  Gydryn stopped across the table from Zafir and braced both hands on the lacquered edge. He assessed the collection of blue markers in the north, but also noted a similar marker pinned in the far south. His gaze flicked to the Emir and back to the northern section of the map, towards which he nodded. “That is Nahavand?”

  “Yes. As far as we can discern, the majority of your men have assembled there, save these.” Zafir tapped the marker in the south. “My scouts have reported that a regiment of your troops is being held under guard at the fortress of Khor Taran, in the region of Abu’Dhan.”

  Farid offered, “They were part of the battalion holding Radov’s furthest southern lines and had the longest march, Your Majesty—time enough for hal’Jaitar’s Shamshir’im to act against them.”

  Gydryn straightened beneath a haze of unease. “How many men have they trapped?”

  The stern, yellow-eyed Rhakar said, “Approximately one thousand.”

  Gydryn kept firm hold on his composure, but barely. “One thousand?” He stared at the map with a dark foreboding pressing against his thoughts. How was he going to rescue his soldiers in the south when he needed to be in the north readying his troops for the journey home?

  The future of his kingdom hinged upon his rapid return with his forces in hand. He dared not sacrifice the kingdom for a thousand men. Still, the idea of abandoning them brought the taste of char to his tongue.

  “You must rally the main army, father.” Trell scrubbed at the scruff of beard darkening his jaw, clearly pondering the same problem. “I’ll go to Abu’Dhan and free the rest.”

  Gydryn turned a swift look to his son—his brave, courageous son!

  Trell nodded to him, all the acknowledgment needed in that moment, so much conveyed within their locking of gazes, and then he looked to the Emir. “That is, if you can spare some men to aid me, Su’a’dal?”