Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  “Would you like something to eat, Tanis?” Sinárr lifted his chin from his hand to indicate the empty table. “Or do you prefer to conjure it yourself?”

  Tanis frowned at him. “You needn’t be petulant.”

  Sinárr cracked a smile. “I was trying to be deferential.”

  Tanis stared unhappily at him. Every time he thought he had the Warlock’s thoughts or motives pinned down, Sinárr moved in a different direction.

  The lad plopped down in his chair, pressed his hands to his face and mashed his cheeks towards each other to encourage the frozen muscles to work properly again. Amid this ungainly manipulation, he mumbled, “I’m…really hungry.”

  Sinárr nodded accommodatingly. When Tanis lowered his hands, the table held a host of platters offering so many varied delights that Tanis’s stomach growled just from smelling them.

  While the lad was serving himself a turkey leg, Sinárr remarked, chin in hand again, “I mislike this lingering discord between us, Tanis. I would that we remedied it somehow.”

  Tanis paused just before taking a bite of the meat. “Then let me go, Sinárr.”

  “I cannot, Tanis.”

  “You choose not to.”

  “A moot distinction. The outcome is the same.”

  “What do you hope to accomplish?” Tanis lowered the meat back to his plate. “You think you’ll somehow convince me to be your slave for all eternity?”

  A slight furrow narrowed Sinárr’s brow. “A concubine is not a slave.”

  Tanis arched an eyebrow in challenge. “A moot distinction. The outcome is the same.” He returned to his food.

  Sinárr’s expression became slightly pinched. His lips made a firm line. “If a dog refuses to comply, do you simply give up with training the animal and set it loose in the wild? Is that not worse for the dog?”

  Tanis reached to pour himself some wine. “Is that how you see Mérethe? As your pet?” It would certainly explain a few things. He took a drink of wine and asked more deliberately, “Is that how you see me?”

  Sinárr dropped his hand into his lap. The furrow between his brow deepened. “You…confuse me, Tanis.”

  “Likewise, Sinárr.”

  The Warlock straightened in response to this. “Have I not been solicitous to your needs? Given you everything you asked? Have I not looked the other way when you sought to communicate with Pelasommáyurek, who I cannot but think of as a rival, yet with whom I willingly aided your communication when your sleeping mind sought his in the night?”

  Tanis slowly lowered his goblet from his lips. “So you did help us.” He shook his head, staring at him. “Why would you do that?”

  “You seemed upset. I thought it would calm you to speak with someone you knew and trusted. When you reached for him in your dreaming sleep, I…facilitated the connection.”

  Tanis thought of the dream scene as it had played out on Pelas’s terrace and felt suddenly violated. “You listened to our conversation and painted our words with illusion?”

  “No, Tanis. You wove the context of the dream. I merely…” he waved an absent hand, “didn’t stop you.”

  Tanis sat back in his chair. “I did that.” His gaze tightened. “Like I made the storm? You let me do both? Why?” He took up his wine again and gave the Warlock a tight look over its rim. “More gallant acts of courtship?”

  Frustration clouded Sinárr’s expression. “I don’t understand why you expect such ignobility from me.”

  “Yes, I wonder why?”

  “I gather from your sarcastic tone that you take exception with my actions.”

  “Sinárr…” Tanis had a hard time keeping the derision out of his voice. “You attacked me in the temple, attacked us again in Shadow, you took me hostage, you’re holding me against my will. You’ve made eidola for Shail.” He flung out a hand at the man. “By Cephrael’s Great Book, you fed off of Mérethe—”

  “Fed off of Mérethe!” Sinárr sat abruptly forward in his chair. “Did she claim this vile untruth?” His tone had become very dangerous indeed.

  Tanis reined back hard on his hauteur, for the look in Sinárr’s eyes and the indignation in his tone made it clear to the lad that in this presumption, he was very much in the wrong.

  The gazebo seemed to tip and teeter violently.

  Tanis dropped his gaze and his peremptory tone and sort of scraped out a reply around the disconcertion suddenly choking him. “I…assumed. It was my mistake.”

  Sinárr sat back with an elbow on the chair arm and one long forefinger framing his temple. He studied Tanis in this fashion for a lengthy time. Finally, he let his hand fall to his lap. “I made no harvester of Mérethe.” There was a hint of wounded injustice in his tone, as if Tanis had truly offended him with his accusation. “The very idea of it is inconceivable. That you could imagine such of me only proves how little you understand of Shadow, and of me.”

  Chagrin fluttered in Tanis’s chest, making him reconsider everything he’d been thinking. Here he’d been imagining himself so adept at applying his father’s teachings, when in reality he’d made so many assumptions that he couldn’t now even list them all.

  Tanis forced a swallow. “You’re right. I understand very little—only what I’ve seen or overheard from Shail…or what you or Mérethe have told me.” He lifted his eyes to meet Sinárr’s. “But she has lost her contact with elae.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Tanis searched the Warlock’s gaze. “But if not from something you did, then why?”

  Sinárr settled his chin on his hand again and rubbed one finger along his temple. “That, I don’t know.”

  “Sinárr…” Tanis’s tone pulled the Warlock’s gaze back to his, “if she’s of no use to you anymore, why don’t you release her?”

  Sinárr dropped his hand again and looked at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted horns. “Release her?”

  “From being bound to you. Why don’t you return Mérethe home, to Alorin?”

  Sinárr looked utterly perplexed. “Mérethe wants this? You’ve spoken with her?”

  Once again, Tanis saw that the siren Assumption had nearly lured him onto the rocks. He felt as if he’d been caught in a lie. As a truthreader, this was a uniquely and unsettling experience. “I…well, no.”

  Sinárr arched brows.

  Tanis fell back in his chair and pushed palms to his eyes. Why must you be so bloody confusing?

  Sinárr took up his wine. “It’s your opposing nature that so attracts me to you, Tanis. But lest we somehow forget, we are from different universes in every possible sense. I suspect confusion at each other’s ways is…inevitable.”

  Tanis wasn’t certain that Sinárr had the right of it wholly, but he sensed an important truth somewhere in his statement.

  He couldn’t help comparing this experience to his early days with Pelas. When he looked at the two experiences objectively, they were oddly parallel. Pelas was an immortal from the plane of Chaos with his own unique philosophies on life, bound to his own purpose, which was antithetical to Tanis’s survival. He’d taken Tanis hostage and held him against his will. Yet despite their disparate origins and contentious beginning, Tanis had understood Pelas intuitively, and they’d shared a rapport almost from the beginning.

  Why was his experience with Sinárr so different?

  Because Pelas was always a child of both worlds.

  Perhaps this simplicity again pointed to the answer. Pelas held an innate understanding of elae as well as deyjiin—he just hadn’t known it until Tanis proved it to him.

  But Sinárr…he was as singly a child of Shadow as Tanis was of Light. They were each other’s inverteré, their equal opposite. Tanis had to admit the truth in this, though it wasn’t the only truth he saw suddenly.

  Sinárr was staring into his goblet and tracing a finger along its rim. “Mérethe…” he exhaled a slow sigh. “She became my concubine willingly, and we enjoyed each other for a time, but she blames me for her loss of contact with elae, even
though my binding should’ve prevented it.” His expression twitched with regret. “Shadow is timeless, yet it’s fair to say it’s been decades since Mérethe has willingly spoken to me. My advances have been…poorly received. I try to leave her alone.”

  Hearing this explanation made Tanis feel like he was spinning. No longer teetering on the edge of error, he swirled down a drain of egregious miscalculation.

  “But…” Tanis groped for any rationale that would justify his earlier train of thought. “Why not return her to Alorin then?” He made himself look at the Warlock, though it was painful to meet Sinárr’s gaze after so badly misjudging him. “Why have you kept her here when she doesn’t want to be with you?”

  Sinárr regarded him quietly. “You wouldn’t ask this if you understood what happens to those who’ve been bound to us and then abandoned. I would not leave Mérethe to wither so—nor any eidola of mine.”

  A sick feeling beset Tanis. He’d been terribly misguided by badly-reasoned conclusions and even—dare he admit it?—a sort of prejudice against the Warlock, due to accepting observations, even hearsay, without conducting his own evaluation.

  This was one of the worst mistakes he could’ve made. His father would’ve bowed his head in shame.

  It made no difference that all the events Tanis had witnessed seemed to have been pointing him towards one conclusion. He’d still jumped on the horse of assumption and given it its head without even noticing where the bloody animal was running. He suddenly felt like his own ignorance was suffocating him.

  I need air—lots of air.

  A cold wave crashed powerfully around his legs, knocking him sideways. He tumbled into the surf and was quickly swept deeper into the churning water. Finally finding his feet, he surged up out of the icy wash, choking up saltwater, drenched in seawater as much as the terrible weight of his presumption. He had an awful sense of having wronged Sinárr.

  The Warlock stood higher on the rocky shore, just beyond the tide line, looking frustratingly immaculate in his blue shirt and blood-red cloak, the colors seeming especially brilliant against the cloudy day.

  Tanis gave him a sooty look as he sloshed out of the water, chilled and dripping. “I think you did that deliberately.”

  Sinárr’s lips twitched with a smile. “You seemed a little wilted.”

  Tanis stripped off his tunic and started wringing it out. He’d been wrong about Mérethe, but there were still some things he knew to be true. As he shook out his tunic, he cast the Warlock a sidelong eye. “So why Shail?”

  Sinárr tilted his head slightly. “Perhaps I don’t understand your question.”

  Tanis settled his gaze firmly on the Warlock. “Whatever else you think Shail is doing, he’s set on harming my world—of this much I’m certain. Why are you helping him?”

  “But I’ve already told you, Tanis. I cannot tear the fabric between the realms—only Malorin’athgul can do this.”

  Tanis didn’t bother correcting him on the error of this statement—he’d seen Phaedor do it countless times—for its implication was more important in that moment. “So Shail gives you access to the Realms of Light. That’s the only reason you’re allied with him?”

  “What greater reason do I need?”

  Tanis thrust his arms into his wet tunic and grimaced. “Does binding me to you give you that access?” He shoved his head through the opening and pulled the clammy thing down over himself. It was hardly better than standing bare-chested in the chill wind.

  Sinárr looked him over mildly, but there was nothing mild about his answer. “An Adept bound to a Warlock acts as a porthole into the world. A Warlock can follow the Adept’s connection to elae to find his way inside. With you bound to me, I would have no need for Shail except as a means of restoring you to Alorin.”

  Tanis held his gaze, considering this. Shail acting alone against them was disheartening, but Shail with a Warlock pinned to his cloak spelled sure disaster. Though still unnerved by the prospect of binding, a new idea colored over Tanis’s previously hazy outline to form a different shape. He thought he saw a path towards disrupting Shail’s plans.

  If he dared follow it.

  He shoved wet hair out of his eyes. “I thought you and Shail were allies.”

  “Allies is too strong a word. We serve each other’s purposes.”

  Upon this utterance, the world started tilting again, but this time Tanis sensed it inclining in a fortuitous direction. Tingling all over, he said a bit weakly, “You would forsake your contract with Shail—or whatever it is you’re doing together—for me?”

  The Warlock pinned Tanis with an ardent gaze. “Surely you’ve realized by now that I would do anything to bind with you, Tanis.”

  Uncomfortable beneath the needle of Sinárr’s regard, the lad scrubbed a hand through his sand-filled hair and stared off down the shoreline. He saw Fortune drawing a new course for his potential path, but he felt like he was rushing headlong towards the first curve without any way of braking. It’s moving too fast, and there are still too many things I don’t know!

  He lifted his eyes back to Sinárr. “There’s this part I still don’t understand.”

  The Warlock gave him a tolerant look.

  Tanis was formulating his question when his hair was suddenly dry again and his clothes fresh and clean. He even had a cloak to protect against the wind. It seemed the Warlock had forgiven him his earlier criticism. The lad lifted an apologetic look to Sinárr. “Thank you.”

  A smile twitched on his lips. “My pleasure.”

  Tanis drew the heavy cloak closer around himself. “I just need to understand…why do you have this fascination with Alorin?” He flung a hand towards the crashing waves. “Why do you imitate another world when you could make it look like anything you wanted?”

  Sinárr clasped hands behind his back and shifted his gaze out over the ocean of his creation. His brow constricted slightly. “As to the latter…” he cast him a smile hinting of confusion, “I did this for you, Tanis, to surround you with something familiar.” He looked the lad over with a sort of injured majesty—or perhaps Tanis was just projecting the injury upon him, having realized now that he’d done him such an injustice. “I perceive your excitement over the new and unique, but I doubt you’d feel so firmly grounded and confident in yourself without the land and the sky and a sense of gravity pulling against you.”

  Tanis admitted Sinárr could be right about that—he recalled too nearly that feeling of vertigo in the void. “And as to my first question?”

  The Warlock shrugged. “I like the sensation of your world.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Sinárr cracked a smile. “Nothing so sinister as your expression implies.” He started walking towards the surf. “Your realm is full of sensation.” He cast a gaze of invitation over his shoulder, so the lad jogged to join him. “The rich taste of roasted fowl, a lemon’s tart cool bite, the refreshing mist cast by cascading water, the shade of trees and the heat of the sun on your baking skin; undulating rocks beneath your feet; hunger, thirst and craving; the painfully vivid colors of the sunset, the delightful terror of a raging thunderstorm…”

  He walked them directly towards a wave. Just when Tanis was bracing himself to receive another icy dousing, the water parted and rolled backwards on itself to form a channel for their passing.

  “Sensation abounds in your world.” Sinárr continued leading them deeper into the parted sea. “You feel the weight of cloth upon your body, its wildly varied caresses against your skin, and always gravity’s immutable pulling of your form towards the planetary core. Pressure, temperature, sound—oh, sound!” He cast Tanis a marveling look. “Sound is simply a product of force, yet it can be used to create miraculous wonders.”

  He paused their walk beside a school of fish that was eyeing them through the wall of their watery domain. Sinárr held up a dark-skinned hand for their inspection. “You see all shapes and forms, and a kaleidoscope of motion, even the motion trapped in t
he apparent solidity of objects.” Sinárr leaned towards the fish, bringing his ebony nose nearly to the edge of the wall of water, whose surface towered high above them now. “You even enjoy a wide scale of emotion that causes physical and chemical reactions in your bodies, themselves wondrous to experience.” He flashed a smile at the fish. They scattered.

  Sinárr looked to Tanis—

  The water crashed in upon them.

  Tanis felt an instant of panic, but Sinárr placed a hand on his shoulder and grounded him firmly in the sand. Moments later, the tumult of silt and water cleared, and Tanis looked around from the sea floor.

  “Here, I make the rules.” Tanis heard Sinárr clearly, though water now surrounded them. The lad had no difficulty breathing except through his unreality.

  “For you, Tanis, there is much sensation in my universe.” Sinárr placed a finger beneath Tanis’s chin and gently guided the lad’s eyes up to his own. “But only because I place the sensation in the illusion I’m crafting for your benefit. For me…” he shrugged and sighed.

  The idea of talking under the water was just too surreal. Can we please go somewhere else?

  And they were back on the balcony overlooking the edge of the world and a dazzling nighttime sky. Sinárr leaned one hip against the railing and regarded Tanis with a quirk of a smile. “You were about to say?”

  No longer merely an outline, Tanis’s picture of understanding now had color and form. All he needed to finish it was the detail. He looked up at the Warlock. “Your universe has no feeling?”

  Sinárr tilted his head slightly. Then he cupped his hands before him, and a geyser of light exploded upwards from them. The light’s shifting glow brought an intensity to his features and made his golden eyes sparkle.

  “My universe offers perceptions by the thousands, Tanis. For me, the colors of light are a language all their own. To see energy coalesce and merge, solidify and change, is to conceptually know every potential wavelength of this power. This is but one of hundreds of ways I perceive my universe.”

  Sinárr vanished the dancing light and held the lad’s gaze in the darkness that poured into the space of its departure. “But sensation…” He lifted the velvet edge of his cloak. “To feel this cloak the way you feel it, I have to place the sensation there first to then be beheld. My worlds offer back to me only what sensations I place into it.”