Socotra arched a brow. “What makes him unordinary?”
“Oh, no, it’s just…well, he’s rather extraordinary, Madam Scholar.”
Both of Socotra’s eyebrows arched that time, doubtless pushing her wrinkled forehead up in indecorous mounds. She’d long stopped paying attention to mirrors for the stranger they always showed staring back at her. “He’s an Adept then?”
“He didn’t say, Madam.” The girl seemed distracted by her memory of the man. She twined a strand of dark hair around her finger. “He’s really…tall.”
“Oh, for Epiphany’s sake.” Parade a handsome man before a teenage girl and she becomes as useful as frozen butter. Socotra came down off her stepladder—she remembered a day when the maneuver hadn’t required so much concentration—and retrieved the next book to be put away on the shelf. “Send him to Maestro Restari. It’s his day to entertain inquiries.”
“Maestro Restari is in class, Madam Scholar.”
Socotra carefully climbed back up the ladder again. “Maestro di Priori then.”
“He’s in a meeting, Madam. The gentleman asked to speak with a leading Sobra Scholar.”
“Oh, he’s a gentleman now, is he?” Socotra pushed the book into place and leaned an elbow on the bookshelf to study the intern. “And he wants to speak with a leading Sobra Scholar.” She sighed and came down off the ladder again. “He’s some kind of lord, I presume?”
No telling what this nobleman wanted. She’d unhappily learned through the years that being one of the Sormitáge’s foremost Sobra Scholars too often involved dealing with nobles with inflated ideas about the value of their own opinions on subjects they knew absolutely nothing about.
“He’s certainly dressed like a nobleman, Madam, but he didn’t give any title.”
Socotra eyed the intern vexedly. “Did you manage to find out anything about him, Marie?”
“It’s Margarie, Madam Scholar.” The intern twirled her hair. “He did say something about being an acquaintance of some famous artist…Immanuel di Nostri, I think?”
Socotra’s insides tightened as if she’d just been doused in ice-water. Lady’s light, how embarrassing! Just hearing Immanuel’s name did ridiculous things to her, especially since his recent visit.
She waved brusquely at the intern to cover the moment’s discomposure. “You might’ve started with that, Margarie. Take me to him then.”
The girl led away at a brisk pace which soon had Socotra straining to keep up—old bones resented being bounced and jostled like apples in an open cart, and hers were pushing four centuries, even if she might’ve passed for sixty name days beneath the moon. Such was the power of the Pattern of Life, that working it but twice had propelled her into a future she’d never imagined wanting to see.
“Lady’s light, child!” Socotra’s tone summoned the girl to heel. “There’s little chance of him being gone before you return if he came here for answers. Hasten slowly.”
Margarie flushed. “My apologies, Madam Scholar.” She continued at a more sedate pace.
Socotra had left her office so quickly that she’d forgotten to don her Palmer’s wimple and hood. Ah well…
To make up for the indiscretion, she gave the intern a long lecture on the immodesty of haste, well timed to conclude just as they reached the doors separating the public and private spaces of the Sormitáge’s immense Hall of Sobra Scholars.
Carved of alabaster and nearly fifty feet high, the doors were replicas of the Extian Doors as depicted in the Sobra I’ternin. Bursting with myriad expressions of life, the exquisitely sculpted doors seemed to have captured all manner of animals and men complete, their bodies entwined harmoniously in their ascent towards Annwn. Socotra had never once passed through the doors without admiring their detail. It made every morning bittersweet, thinking of the artist who’d sculpted them.
She allowed herself a private smile upon this reflection. He was every inch as exquisite as his art.
The doors opened with a flow of elae, swinging inward to reveal a man standing before their parting as if he’d been inspecting them from the other side. He was indeed quite tall.
“Here is the gentleman, Madam Scholar,” the intern gushed—as if Socotra couldn’t have figured this out for herself.
The gentleman wore a damask jacket of burnished gold over an embroidered white shirt whose long cuffs skimmed his knuckles. He wore his short raven hair swept back from his broad forehead. The lines of his nose, cheekbones and squared chin displayed a symmetry of form almost too perfect for Nature to have had much hand in their creation, which immediately made Socotra suspicious of his nature.
He was standing with his feet planted slightly apart and holding a sculpted black cane behind his back, the stance of a man comfortably in command—certainly of a man comfortable in his own skin. He gave the impression of a personage who lived by no other’s grace. Despite her arrival, his gaze remained fixed on the sculpture above the doors.
Socotra saw something in his eyes as he studied the lintel. Not so much appreciation as recognition; less admiration than…resignation?
“This work,” he glanced down to her—truly startling, the effect of his gaze settling upon her; almost as a shock of power scoring along her core. Only one other man had ever affected her thusly, and she was standing beneath his handiwork. She better understood the intern’s reaction to him now. “Whose is it?”
Her eyes tightened. “I think you know.” She looked him over discreetly. “I am Socotra Isio. I’m told you have questions on the Returning. I’ll answer what I can.”
“Shall I reserve a gallery, Madam?” Margarie was staring at the gentleman as if she would’ve rather reserved a bedroom.
“We’ll speak in my office.” Socotra looked the blushing intern over resignedly. “Find one of my interns,” —one of the male ones— “will you, Margarie? Stefan or…Ronald, Rikard—”
“Richard?”
“Yes, that one, and have him bring tea for us.”
Margarie bobbed a curtsy. “Yes, Madam Scholar.” She cast a fleeting, wistful look at the gentleman visitor—who hadn’t once appeared to notice her—and whisked away.
Socotra frowned after her. Then she shifted her gaze and frowned at the stranger, who still had not offered his name. “Well…” her aging eyes had rarely encountered a man of such self-possession, “you’d best come with me.”
He followed her in silence, though she remained acutely aware of his presence walking in her wake, but even more so of the effect his presence was having on the mortal tapestry.
In her years spent pursuing the Palmer’s faith, Socotra had learned to perceive the mortal tapestry in the way raedans learned to read the currents of elae. She’d determined through observation that some men glided through the world leaving a slender thread in the pattern. Some let the world glide around them, hardly weaving any thread at all. Still others chopped up the fabric, tilling the aether of Balance, leaving ruts of disharmony.
But this man…it was as if he caught and pulled the tapestry with him in his passing—verily, its gossamer threads practically clung to him. He dragged them along behind himself in a flowing train of consequence, with his every step reshaping the pattern.
Socotra knew a vortice when she saw one.
She led him into her office. He stopped just inside the double doors and looked around—at her two floors of bookshelves, at the wall of windows overlooking the piazza, at the large hearth that always had a small blaze going, even on warm days.
There were certain benefits to being good at what you do. Socotra’s father had taught her that truism from her earliest years, when she’d still been spending her days running barefoot in Malchiarr’s cloud forest, never thinking she would stray beyond those mountains of mist; fresher days, when it had seemed impossible that she might betray her faith with one oath or restore it with another; long before she could’ve imagined sharing her bed with a man like Immanuel di Nostri.
Socotra walked to her cart
of books and picked up a stack of them. “Here,” she extended the books to her guest. “You can make yourself useful while we wait for the tea.”
He leaned his cane against a bookcase and accepted the books without comment.
Socotra waved towards the higher shelves. “Up there—alphabetically.”
With careful attention, he studied each book’s binding and then placed it on the appropriate shelf, most of which she’d have needed to climb four ladder steps to reach. However, the last and largest book gave him pause.
He extended the cover towards her. “This language is foreign to me.”
Socotra looked at the book in his hands. The gold lettering tooled into the leather was shifting continuously through every alphabet known to man. Socotra grunted and took it from him. “Seems the book doesn’t know what to make of you either.” In her hands, the lettering resolved into Malchiarri. “This one goes up there.” She pointed to a dark opening on the highest shelf, into which he obligingly restored the book.
So intriguing, this striking man with his provocative stare and unsettling radiance of power.
Socotra had always been the curious sort, but experience had taught her patience, especially when dealing with immortals. And this man was fifth strand or she’d give up her university tenure and go back to weaving baskets in Malchiarr.
She handed him another stack of books.
And so it went, trading books with glances, the passing of each an opportunity for conversation, each of her invitations silently but politely denied.
He didn’t strike her as a man who spoke of idle things to fill the empty spaces of silence. He seemed the kind of man for whom words were decisions, pieces in a King’s game, each one carefully weighed, chosen and placed deliberately upon its square.
She’d just returned the last book to its shelf when Richard arrived with the tea. He hovered in the doorway holding the tray, his blue eyes fixed on the stranger with a mixture of curiosity and ready suspicion. “Madam Scholar?”
“Yes, yes,” she pushed hands against her lower back, remembering a time when her body had been a vehicle instead of a hindrance, “we’ll take the tea by the windows.”
Socotra turned to her oddly grandiose guest. Her thoughts kept comparing him to Immanuel, but though she suspected they were bound to the same strand, the two men were as dissimilar as night and day.
She had to lift her head to meet her guest’s gaze. “You do drink tea, I suppose?”
He took up his black cane from where it had been resting against the bookshelf. It was a gorgeous piece of sculpture, as elaborate as a king’s scepter, and if it wasn’t Merdanti, Socotra would eat her wimple.
He nodded slightly to her. “If you are offering, madam.”
“I’m offering.” Somewhat against my better judgment.
Was that a twitch in the corner of his mouth? The hint of a smile aimed at her passing thought, plucked from the aether? Immanuel had always seemed to know her mind as surely as any truthreader.
Then again, maybe she’d just imagined the twitch. Her guest wasn’t exactly a basket of ready grins.
Richard was setting out the tea when Socotra reached the table. Beyond the tall windows of her office, daylight drenched the world, and the trees lining the building’s edge were bright with spring’s gloss. To her perception, the man radiating behind her glowed brighter still.
“I’ll take things from here, Richard. Close my office doors on your way out.”
“Yes, Madam Scholar.” He glanced at the stranger as he departed, speculation hot in his young gaze. Doubtless there would be quite some talk among the Maritus students that night.
Her guest was observing the second floor of her library and hardly seemed to notice Richard’s exit.
Socotra settled into her armchair, feeling manifestly old. What was it about handsome men that made a woman so suddenly aware of her years? “So…” she extended a hand for her guest to join her at the table, “how do you know Immanuel di Nostri?”
He seated himself in the armchair and crossed his legs as he sat back, fixing his brown eyes upon her. “Is this to be the manner of our treating, Socotra? You ask me a question, I ask you a question?”
His deep voice enfolded her like a bolt of velvet power, wrapping her whole and complete to reshape her to its design. Lady’s light…Socotra forced an even breath. Had the intent of compulsion laced his words, she would’ve been putty beneath them.
She leaned to pour the tea and was pleased to find her hand far steadier than her heart. “You would prefer it some other way?”
The slightest shadow narrowed his brow. “I am merely…uninstructed in the delicacies of social engagement.”
Socotra set down the tea pot, sat back in her chair and studied him. She’d known men who commanded power by nature of position, and men who compelled it by nature of ability, but in her several hundred years of life, she’d encountered only one man who was power—whether or not he’d ever admitted this truth to her.
She nudged her saucer away from the table’s edge. “Etiquette is for wives and politicians. I prefer the stiff drink of candor.”
He clasped long fingers in his lap and studied her in return—a heart-quickening experience to be sure. “And how much candor can you drink, Socotra?”
“A good deal more than we’ll have tea for.” She took up said tea, really wishing it was a stiff drink instead. “You might start with your name.”
He gave a nod to this simplicity, but his eyes never left hers. “My name is Darshanvenkhátraman.”
“That’s a mouthful.” The foreign name felt sharp in her thoughts, as words of power, those with patterns underlying their arrangement, are wont to do. Her order had derived many such words from their study of the Sobra I’ternin. “What is its meaning?”
His lips twitched with an almost-smile. “It means Destroyer of Hope.”
“Your mother had a sense of humor, I see.” She took a sip of tea and scalded her tongue, much the way her credulity was feeling round about then. “Is there a short version to this mouthful?”
His gaze looked her over with the faintest glimmer of what might’ve passed for amusement for him. “Darshan.”
“Very well, Darshan.” Socotra set down her tea before her hands started shaking. A woman couldn’t sit four feet from a man radiating such power and not be affected by him—she’d hazard that even the Empress would’ve chosen to keep her hands in her lap. “What questions do you have about the Returning?”
“Just at the moment, I have questions about you, Socotra Isio.”
Socotra’s heart fluttered in spite of her years.
Every immortal she’d ever encountered had a sense of predation about them. Even Immanuel had given her looks that made the hair on her arms stand on end. Yet if Immanuel embodied the qualities of a jaguar, this one took the form of a panther—far darker and appallingly dangerous. But she’d survived encounters with such cats in Malchiarr; she knew how to tread lightly around them.
Taking her silence for acquiescence, or perhaps not caring if he had her agreement or not, he took up his teacup and eyed her over the rim. “How does an Adept of your quality become one of the Sormitáge’s foremost Sobra Scholars?”
“Of my quality?” A bemused smile flickered on her lips. She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or insulted. “You mean a Wildling?”
“I speak only to the impression of your lifeforce on the currents.”
“Ah. Well,” she gave a resigned grunt, “a few centuries of study and a lot of groveling.”
He waggled a finger towards something behind her. “And these accoutrements?”
She turned to see her wimple and veil on their headrest by her desk. “The Palmer’s drape is a ritual of faith.” She looked back to him. “Studying the Sobra is my profession.”
“Yet does this faith not derive also from this profession?”
“Certainly the Sobra forms the basis for our religious dogma.” Socotra held a hand to draw h
is attention to the left side of her library. “But most of these works are the writings of Epiphany’s Prophet, important texts to my faith.”
“How so?”
“The writings of Epiphany’s Prophet transcend the Sobra’s axioms in the way the Esoterics transcend the Laws of Patterning. Epiphany’s Prophet has helped us understand how the axiomatic patterns of the Sobra apply to all of life, not merely to Patterning.”
“Epiphany’s Prophet…” he sipped his tea, “the enigmatic Isabel van Gelderan.”
Something in the way he said her name, some intimacy in its construction… Socotra wondered if he’d crossed paths with the Citadel’s High Mage, and recently.
Most of the world thought Isabel van Gelderan had perished with the Hundred Mages on Tiern’aval. Having lived through the Citadel’s fall, Socotra knew better of this untruth.
She straightened her robe across her knee. “Without the writings of Epiphany’s Prophet, we Palmers would never have learned to see the mortal tapestry.”
He tilted his head slightly. “You can see the tapestry?” He returned the cup to its saucer. “Speak to me of this ability.”
“Sight is too strong a word. It’s a perception, not something one views with mortal eyes.” Socotra reached for her tea and was glad to find her hand steady again. “In her writings, Epiphany’s Prophet teaches us how to find this perception and hone it, even as a raedan learns to read the currents of elae.”
“Are they not the same energies—the tapestry and the currents?”
“Yes, but they’re not the same canvas, Darshan.”
“Intriguing, Socotra.” He set down the cup and saucer and flowed to his feet. Walking to the windows, he lifted aside the sheer curtains and gazed out over the broad piazza. “How does an Adept Return?” He turned her a look in caution. “Give me not the mythology, the religious speculation. What are the mechanics involved in this process?”
Socotra fixed her gaze on the tall figure blocking out the daylight. “Adepts are bound to the mortal tapestry via the patterns inherent in their makeup.” She let her eyes admire the long line of Darshan’s form and wondered where a man like him had been all these years to go unnoticed and unremarked. “Those patterns bind them to a particular strand of elae. There is much dissention among us exactly how the patterns bind an Adept, but evidence suggests that the patterns that enable an Adept’s innate ability are not merely confined to their bodies but are somehow scripted to their immortal souls, for Adepts always return to the same strand, even when the gender of the body changes.”
Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4) Page 95
