“And this is desirable…why?” Rolan sounded doubtful.
Trell munched on his stew and studied the map, comparing places his eyes had seen that day with their topographical representations, marrying landmarks with ridge points. “Have any of you wondered why the Nadoriin haven’t come out to hunt us down?” He lifted his gaze to meet all of theirs. “Khor Taran’s wielder has known of our whereabouts for days, perhaps weeks. Why haven’t the Nadoriin marched out of their fortress to wipe us from their domain?”
Into the silence that followed his question, Tannour remarked, “A bear can’t be bothered to swat at a fly.”
Trell nodded to his point, then looked inquiringly for other ideas.
“Five hundred men in a fortress that size,” Raegus offered, “they’d all be needed there to hold it.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking. It may also be true that the wielder, the Saldarians and the Nadoriin of Khor Taran are not necessarily on amiable terms with each other, or aligned with each other’s purposes.”
Rolan grunted into his wine. “There’s an understatement. Like Vest to Avatar are M’Nador and Saldaria. I’d take a Vestian over a Saldarian any day of the week.”
“Thank you, Lamodaar.” Tannour’s gaze had somewhat frosted over.
“Let’s suppose the Nadoriin have been ordered to hold the fortress,” Trell continued, “while the wielder has orders to hold my father’s men, and the Saldarians…well, whatever their orders, they’re at least out of our way for the moment.”
“I vow we all knew some vindication that night,” Raegus commented, eyes on the map, “but it was joyless. Never did find the leader, and the minute the tide turned against them, the fethen bastards ran off. Didn’t even try to help their wounded.”
Rolan rumbled, “Rats make better bed partners.”
“The Saldarians lie behind us on the path for now,” Trell said. “Let us fix our eyes to what lies ahead.” He motioned with his spoon to the map area south of the fortress, a wide valley that curved to the west. “This is where the Emir’s forces will set up camp.”
Raegus scratched at his head. “The imaginary forces from Duan’Bai?”
“Exactly.” Trell looked to Loukas, who was standing across the table from him staring absently down into his goblet. “How many men to set up and light a hundred bonfires, Loukas? Loukas?”
The Avataren started back to the present. “Sorry.” He pressed a palm to one eye. “A hundred fires? How fast do they need to be lit?”
“All within the first hour of nightfall.”
“How long do they need to burn?”
“At least two hours. Three is better.”
Loukas made some quick calculations in his head. “Forty-six—no. Forty-seven.”
“You’re sure it’s not forty-eight?” Rolan inquired drolly.
Loukas wiped wearily at one green eye, missing his sarcasm entirely. “Of course, that’s assuming the bundles are prearranged and we have enough oil to start them all quickly.”
“How much oil to how many logs, n’Abraxis?” Rolan wanted to know.
“Assuming a standard median porosity and size, we’re looking at approximately twelve to—” but then he noticed Rolan grinning at him and gave the man an aggrieved look.
Trell set down his empty bowl. “Fifty of us to draw out five hundred Nadoriin.” He crossed his arms and studied the map, tracing with his eyes their imagined lines of entry, exit and retreat. “Twenty-five of the strongest to free my father’s men.” He scrubbed at his jaw. “What will you do about our egress, Loukas?”
“Blasting powder at the ridge, but if they’re chasing us—”
“Right. We’d need cavalry to hold them back.”
“That’s assuming the other Nadoriin don’t return from the valley and outflank us.” Loukas met his gaze. “That’s a pretty big assumption, Trell.”
“Then we have to make it impossible for them to return on that road. Make them go through the cave, only to find it blocked.”
“That’s a lot of blasting.”
Trell held his gaze meaningfully. “Or…if we can arm my father’s men…”
Loukas shook his head. “They may not be in any shape to fight after such a long captivity.”
“True, but you know how it alters the odds.”
“By eighty-two percent.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, not exactly.” Loukas pushed his auburn hair back from his face. “The percentage has nonterminating decimals…”
“Did I miss something?” Raegus looked around the group. “Like the part where we talked about how we’re getting into this practically unassailable fortress in the first place?”
“Tell them the plan, Loukas.”
Loukas gave a sort of wince. “Fiera forgive us for calling it a plan.” He shoved both hands back through his hair. “So there’s this aqueduct…”
While Loukas talked them through the ‘plan’—the men’s eyebrows arching incrementally with each new revelation—Trell observed the game board and knuckled his growth of beard.
The best laid plans really only went as far as the first clashing of swords. From that moment forward, chance and luck determined how men would fall, how events would play out, and if consequence would take the direction you’d predicted.
Trell wished he’d had more time to study each potential piece and put it through an equation of cause and consequence to determine the odds of outcome. Instead, he felt the grains of the hourglass slipping away. Each instant took Radov closer to Raku, the Emir closer to war, and his father further from his reach. Each second gave the wielder, his enemy, more time to plot against him.
“You can’t be serious!” Raegus’s shocked exclamation drew Trell from his thoughts.
He looked to the Avataren, who was gaping at him, and arched brows resignedly. “I’ll admit we have some challenges still ahead of us.”
“Some challenges?” Raegus’s eyes looked ready to pop from his skull.
“If the Nadoriin buy our deception,” Rolan muttered, “if they send as many men as we’re expecting them to send in pursuit of our nonexistent army, if we can exit the aqueduct safely and get into the fortress unnoticed…if all of that occurs, none of it—”
“Accounts for the fethen wielder,” Raegus finished heatedly.
Trell’s gaze found Tannour, who had been uncharacteristically silent thus far. “I have a different idea about how to handle Kifat.”
Loukas blew out his breath. “You know…despite everything, it will probably all go off perfectly.” He walked to the liquor chest to pour himself a drink.
Raegus followed him with his gaze. “That’s an unusual optimism from you, n’Abraxis. Why will it all come off perfectly?”
Loukas drained his glass, clapped it down on the cabinet and turned Trell a portentous stare. “Because our A’dal is in collusion with Cephrael.”
Raegus assumed the look of a man who was sure he must’ve missed something.
“I saw the constellation bow to him.” Loukas refilled his glass. “Cephrael’s Hand. I watched it appear out of nowhere tonight and bow to the A’dal.”
“It bowed to you?” Rolan’s black bear eyebrows reached for each other.
Trell glanced from Rolan to Loukas uncertainly. “It didn’t bow to me.”
Loukas put meaning into his gaze. “At the very least it winked at you.”
“Cephrael’s Hand winked at you?” Raegus asked.
Trell cast him a sidelong eye. “I highly doubt it winked at me.”
“Then why did it follow us here?”
“The constellation followed you?” Raegus and Rolan exclaimed together.
“It’s high above us right now.” Loukas was holding Trell’s gaze, fully expecting some explanation from him for what he’d witnessed. The trouble was, Trell couldn’t explain it either.
His head felt as heavy as iron, and weariness was burning his eyes. This was no time for speculating about divinities. He spread
his hands and leaned on the table. “Superstition isn’t going to see us through the next many hours. Our success or failure hinges on this plan, exactly timed, meticulously executed.” He straightened and pointedly held Loukas’s gaze. “We should seek rest with what’s left of the night. We’ve a day and a half at most to prepare.”
“Your will, A’dal.” Rolan pressed fist to heart and headed off, clapping Raegus on the arm as he went.
Raegus cast Trell a wondering stare and trudged after Rolan. Tannour rose to follow them.
“Tannour, may I have a word?”
The Vestian halted a few steps from the door.
“Trell…” Sudden contrition threaded Loukas’s tone. He was staring at the glass in his hand. “I shouldn’t have—”
Trell eyed him quietly. “Get some sleep, Loukas.”
The engineer nodded, set down his glass, and eyed Tannour unreadably as he left.
Trell walked to the liquor chest. “Wine, Tannour?”
“No, thank you, Your Highness.”
Trell poured a goblet for himself, saying while he watched it filling, “We didn’t finish our conversation the other night.”
“No,” Tannour agreed tightly.
Trell turned a look over his shoulder. Tannour was standing there very much seeming bound by reticence and unease, his dark hair falling across his cheekbones, the planes of his face drawn in ashen lines.
Trell moved to a chair across from where Tannour was staring at his toes. “I need to know if you’re capable of doing what I require of you.”
“I’ll do anything you ask of me, A’dal.”
“Your willingness, I trust. But can you accomplish it?” Trell slowly lowered himself into the chair, feeling exhaustion’s ache in every pore. “This is what I must know. Loukas called you an airwalker. Explain this to me.”
Silence wrapped Tannour so deeply that he almost seemed to vanish into it. He stared forcefully at the carpet for a long time. Then he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Some things are just understood in Vest: the first son takes the father’s place, the second son serves his family’s estates, and the third son, if there is a third son, is sent to the Sorceresy for training.” He lifted burning eyes to Trell. “I am the third son.”
“I know very little about the Vestian Sorceresy.”
“They prefer things that way,” Tannour quipped acidly.
“But I knew well of one of their mor’alir Adepts.”
“Yes, so you said.”
“Are you a mor’alir Adept, Tannour?”
“No, A’dal.”
“What are you then?”
Tannour clasped hands roughly behind his head and made a vice with his elbows before his face. He stood this way for several long breaths. Then he dropped his hands to his sides and moved to claim a chair across from Trell.
“The Sorceresy teaches that you don’t choose the path, the path chooses you.” He lifted pale blue eyes to meet Trell’s gaze. “I was thirteen when the path chose me. That’s the age I was sent to the Sorceresy, as all third sons are. They tested me, as they test everyone—a month of torment and trials, trickery, wicked games of mind and malice that you wouldn’t wage upon your worst foe—and after a time, though I doubt it took them the entire time, because they enjoy torturing young boys for their entertainment, they determined I could learn to speak the language of Air.”
He sank elbows onto his knees. “This language is called ver’alir, the Blind Path, a rare path. It lies between chrys’alir, the Mirror Path, and mor’alir, the Path of Shadows.”
“Loukas spoke of Avataren legends of airwalkers leading legions among the clouds.” Trell studied Tannour’s downcast stance. “Can you work elae’s fifth strand, Tannour?”
Tannour lifted his head from his hands. “I wouldn’t know it if I did, A’dal. We aren’t taught with any such terminology.”
“What can you do?”
Tannour gave him a regretful look. “It is death to speak of it.”
“You can trust my discretion—”
“No, A’dal,” Tannour pressed his lips together, “I mean this as the literal truth. I would die if I tried to speak of these things.”
Upon this utterance, a memory flashed in Trell’s mind—his body broken, beaten, strapped to a trunk; and a hostile face before his own, shouting with foul breath and fouler words, demanding thoughts Trell’s tongue refused to carry, no matter how desperately he tried to speak them…
This was not a memory he relished, yet as he tried to ease the tension that suddenly constricted his shoulders, as if those straps still bound him backwards across the arching wood, Trell was at least grateful that he did in fact remember it.
He regarded Tannour with quiet understanding. “They’ve truthbound you.”
The Vestian shrugged. “This is a foreign terminology. I trust in Your Highness’s assessment.”
Trell settled his goblet on a table. “The wielder at Khor Taran is a problem piece upon our game board. By nature of being a wielder, he’s more powerful than any of us. But I wonder…is he more powerful than you?”
Tannour slowly lifted his gaze. “If you’re asking me if I will take him on, the answer is yes.”
“But can you defeat him?”
Tannour worked the muscles of his jaw, masticating a cold yet unaccountable anger that reflected in his gaze. “Yes.”
Trell accepted this without questioning it further. “You said your life was in danger, your name upon a list.”
Tannour blew out his breath and fell back in his chair. “They wanted me to kill a man.” He turned and stared heatedly off towards the curtains. “I suppose it’s true that it resonates for me…ver’alir, the Blind Path.” He looked at his open palm, ran his other fingers across it. “I feel it calling every time I use my knife. And with every life I claim, I feel my feet binding more firmly to the path. Yet to kill for them…” he slung Trell a look of storms, “this is to bind yourself to ver’alir forever and all time. Worse, it would bind me to them—” Tannour bit back whatever else he’d intended to say and sat in a silence of his own enforcement, radiating disconcertion and injury, chords of injustice playing sharp counterpoint to a thrumming resentment.
Trell studied him quietly. “Because you defied them, they placed a bounty on your life?”
Tannour dragged a hand back through his hair. “The bounty comes from the ones who hired me, the ones I failed. The Sorceresy wants me because…” he blew out a forceful breath. “Suffice it to say that if they ever found me—”
“They would kill you?”
His eyes flew back to Trell’s. “They would make me a puppet, their little marionette assassin. My mind would no longer be my own. I would no longer be me.”
Trell felt a chilling understanding upon hearing this. He saw suddenly his eldest brother’s face superimposed across Tannour’s and knew too well the possibility of which Tannour spoke.
Trell wouldn’t wish such a fate on any man…not even Viernan hal’Jaitar—not even Taliah. It was the worst conceivable cruelty to him to deny a man his own will and at the same time force him to recognize his subjugation in every moment of every day.
He observed Tannour’s downcast eyes. “This is why you wanted me to keep your actions in confidence?”
Tannour looked like he was being made to chew nettles. “Even among outcasts,” he said through clenched teeth, “assassins aren’t fit company. If the others knew, they’d look upon me no better than Radov’s Shamshir’im.”
Trell frowned. “I don’t think less of you because of your past, Tannour. No one among the Converted would.”
He lifted him a bitter gaze. “N’Abraxis does.”
“That lies between you and Loukas, and I’m guessing it began long before you and he sought the Emir’s goodwill.”
Tannour looked away, which was admission enough.
Trell considered him for a moment. Then he pushed out of his chair. “These titles we hang upon ourselves—prince, assassi
n, A’dal—in truth, they’re no different from other names, less respectable: failure, incompetent, coward. We hang ourselves by our imperfections and forge blades of self-abnegation far more damaging than steel. The daggered words of pettiness and envy only harm us because we let them. We’re our own wardens, jailors and headsmen, Tannour. We decide what defines us.”
Tannour held his gaze for a long time in silence, his expression unreadable save for the slight furrow between his brows.
For some reason, in holding his gaze in return, Trell was reminded of Ean, who he hadn’t seen in so many long years. He wondered if his younger brother, third-born of the val Lorian sons, was struggling to define himself as Tannour was, seeking a path of his own choosing yet unable to escape the bombarding expectations of others. Had Ean found ways to define himself, or had he let others’ assumptions forecast the direction of his path?
One thing Trell knew for certain—Ean would be just as headstrong about making his own choices as Tannour seemed to be. The thought made him smile.
Trell cast it in the Vestian’s direction. “You should get some sleep.”
Tannour’s gaze upon him tightened slightly. “I will if you will.”
Trell’s smile widened. “I give you my word I shall find my bed before the sun rises.”
“That leaves a lot of room for interpretation.”
Trell winked. “The smartest negotiations generally do.”
Tannour accordingly pushed from his chair and made his way towards the exit, but he paused just shy of the opening. “You know…” he looked over his shoulder at Trell, solemn and serious, “none of us doubted n’Abraxis tonight.”
Trell arched brows by way of inquiry.
“About the constellation.” He held Trell’s gaze seriously for a moment longer. Then he bowed and departed.
Staring after him, Trell heard Rolan’s words, spoken out of the mist of memory, ‘The gods can’t help us when we don’t seek their aid.’
Trell dropped his chin to his chest and closed his aching eyes. He didn’t know if the angiel Cephrael was out there somewhere, listening to their hearts as Naiadithine did, or watching their goings on beneath the auspices of seven unearthly stars. He didn’t know if the constellation had actually acknowledged him earlier, or if it had simply been a trick of dark clouds; but whether the angiel was listening or watching, or was simply a figment of men’s hopes, Trell had no compunction about asking for His aid.
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