Kingdom Blades (A Pattern of Shadow & Light 4)

by McPhail, Melissa

  Leyd hunkered down beside the table and pointed to a swirling central pattern that the others appeared to be linked through. “This fifth-strand one is for pinning it to them—the pitch to make the feathers stick. This one…” his lip rose with malicious amusement, “is for disorientation.” Then he straightened again and grinned at Viernan. “When they return, they’ll be fire-spittin’ mad. It goes without saying that your forces must gain the oasis before that happens.”

  If it goes without saying, why are you saying it? Viernan studied him with dark circumspection. “This seems a low betrayal, even for you.”

  The zanthyr tossed back the bourbon and went to refill his glass. “You know how they say love is the cause of all disasters among the gods?” He looked up beneath his brows while he poured his next drink. “It’s not love, old man. It’s boredom.”

  As Viernan stared at the zanthyr, a niggling, nagging part of him warned that this was what his life amounted to—centuries of courtship with the debased and vile, culminating in this abominable creature who stood as an affront to his own divine purpose.

  Shaking his head, Viernan returned his attention to the matrix.

  It made his eyes hurt—never mind his head—trying to contemplate the difficulty of working it. He counted the patterns of the illusion. Then he turned Leyd a mordant stare. “This is nine patterns woven through a tenth for binding.”

  Leyd drank his bourbon. “And?”

  Viernan bristled. “I would need nine wielders!”

  “Did you think it would be easy?” He slammed down his drink and was suddenly looming over Viernan, pushing him back with the force of his stare. “Did you expect to blink your eyes and say a magic word and the drachwyr would vanish? You’re pitting yourself against immortals, you decrepit old man! Rise to the challenge, or give up while you can still crawl back to your filthy bughole and cower with the rest of your Shamshir’im fleas.”

  Only when his spine started shouting with pain did Viernan realize he was bent backwards over the table, supporting himself with both hands against the weight of the zanthyr’s enmity and breathing fast for the effort.

  Leyd stared him down a moment longer. Then he straightened, flicked his eyes to the spy—who was pressed as close to the door as possible, smartly trying to remain invisible—and headed over to the liquor chest again. “If you intend to thrust your stick into this anthill, Viernan hal’Jaitar, you’d best know the fury you’ll be stirring up.”

  Viernan stared blackly at him. He blamed Dore Madden for…well, for just about everything. Would that he might’ve used Leyd’s patterns on him. “A single wielder cannot work this matrix.”

  Leyd snorted. “Even Arion Tavestra couldn’t have worked my matrix.”

  Viernan flung him a glare. “Huhktu’s bones, but we could all rise to the stars on the hot air of your self-opinion.” He slipped the simulacra into a pocket inside his robes. “And what of the Emir’s Mage?”

  Leyd poured himself another bourbon. “What of him?”

  “He could do again what he did upon the Khalim Plains.”

  Leyd turned to him, swirling his drink. “And?”

  Viernan ground his teeth. “Know you anything of his whereabouts?”

  Leyd shrugged. “I know he’s not at the sa’reyth—hasn’t graced everyone there with his immaculate presence for ages.” He lifted a finger from his glass to waggle it at Viernan. “But I can guarantee if he was at Raku with the Emir and his pups, your little party would’ve been over long before the entertainment arrived.”

  Viernan supposed this was the best he was going to get from such a creature. He offered a smile of poisoned sugar in return. “You’ve delivered your ill work and drunk of my prince’s hospitality. We needn’t trouble each other any longer.”

  Leyd eyed him amusedly—that is, if a creature forged entirely of venom and malice could look amused. He swirled the bourbon in his glass. “You know, there’s a particular sublevel of the thirteenth hell reserved for mortals like you, Viernan.”

  Viernan spied him coldly. “I would rather endure an infinity immersed in Belloth’s foul humors than share another minute of air with you.”

  The quirk of a grin sprouted on Leyd’s face. He saluted Viernan with his glass. “The next time I see Baelfeir, I’ll be sure to tell him you said that.” Then he downed the bourbon, cast a vicious grin at the Shamshir’im spy, tossed his glass at Viernan and vanished.

  Viernan let the crystal bounce on the carpet. He half expected the glass to start smoking.

  He turned a glare to his Shamshir’im messenger. “Look sharp. We’ve no time to waste.”

  He walked to his desk and rapidly scrawled the spy’s instructions. But even as he was penning a summons for every able wielder at his command, his hand paused, the quill poised, its sharpened tip dripping ink onto the parchment while he saw everything come crashing down—his Shamshir’im destroyed, Tal’Shira fallen, Radov vanquished and with the prince his own power…and he wondered if it might be time to seek a new benefice.

  Then he shook off the ill vision, finished penning his instructions and brusquely offloaded his spy into the howling night.

  Sixty-six

  “No one likes perfect people. They too readily illuminate everyone else’s inadequacies.”

  –The Adept Cassius of Rogue

  Darshan hit the peaked roof with a hard expulsion of breath. His shoulder went instantly numb, and his staff flew out of his fingers. Instinctively, he reached for deyjiin—

  Tumbling behind his staff, he careened down the tower’s slate roof towards an abyss of dusky clouds. He reached for deyjiin…

  He flew off the roof and crashed onto a ledge, almost caught a handhold before gravity pulled him past the lip. He reached for deyjiin…

  A hand caught his flailing arm.

  Darshan hit up hard against the side of the tower and then dangled there, held as much by another’s hand as by the grimmest shade of wonder. He stared down past his boots to the rose-milk clouds misting beneath him, then looked up at the hand clamped around his wrist. A narrow rescue.

  “Give me your other hand!”

  Darshan saw only the man’s fingers fastened around his wrist, an arm bound in a blue coat, and beyond these, the stone ledge rimming the tower. He thought he recognized the tower.

  He swung up his other hand, and the man took it in a hard grip. He hauled Darshan up over the narrow ledge, grunting with effort.

  Darshan fell back against the tower wall with his legs hanging over the edge, still trying to get his bearings. This couldn’t be Shail’s Shadow-space or he would’ve easily found his brother’s starpoints. Yet to find this tower there…

  A hand clasped his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  Darshan swept his hair back from his face and looked up at his rescuer.

  The man fell back—scrambled back?—and pinned himself against the open doorway, staring hotly at him.

  Darshan frowned faintly at the clouds surrounding the tower, wondering what traps Shail had placed beneath their sunset stain. He unbuttoned his coat with one hand while a sardonic smile hinted on his lips. Shailabanáchtran…you have really outdone yourself.

  Darshan glanced over his shoulder to the man still gaping at him. “Thank you for the rescue.”

  Ean slowly sank down against the door. “So this isn’t—”

  “My doing?” Darshan arched a droll brow. “No, Ean val Lorian. We are both my brother’s prisoners, it would appear.” He got to his feet and moved past Ean into the tower.

  Everything inside was as he recalled, right down to the candlesticks and cup on the mantel; every dagger and blade aligned upon their velvet drape, the rumpled bedcovers on the ebony four-poster, even the deep white lines scoring the stone walls, which Pelas had scrawled as he’d paced. Had Shail been planning this eventuality even then?

  Ean followed him inside and gazed bemusedly around. “Do you know where we are?”

  “Shadow.” Darshan walked to the tabl
e and began stowing Pelas’s daggers in their velvet pockets—that is, Shail’s recreations of Pelas’s daggers. “This was the tower where I imprisoned my brother.”

  Ean turned him a swift stare. “You mean Pelas?” The prince looked around the space again, and Darshan saw his larynx lift and fall. “And…Isabel?”

  Darshan arched brows by way of his answer.

  Ean watched him stowing Pelas’s daggers. “Are those the actual…”

  “These are recreations. The real tower and everything in it was destroyed.”

  Ean sank down onto the hearthstone, looking dazed. “Why did he send us here…together?” That last word sounded a bit choked.

  Darshan rolled up the knives in their velvet casing and began securing the ties. “My brother enjoys throwing two cocks into the ring to see which will peck and claw the other to death. He considers it efficient management of resources.”

  Ean’s expression twisted. “Isn’t that what you did when you gave Isabel to Pelas?”

  “Yes.” Darshan looked up under his brows. “We often think alike, my youngest brother and I.”

  The prince rubbed his forehead and then pushed both hands back through his hair. His coat was undone, his shirt partially unbuttoned, but he still had his sword. That was a boon.

  “So…” Ean scrubbed at his head, “you can take us out of here, right?”

  Darshan’s gaze tightened. “Not exactly.” He left the roll of knives and began searching the drawers for anything else that might prove useful. “Not yet.”

  “But you would.”

  Darshan lifted his gaze to him.

  “You would take me with you.” Both question and accusation burned in his gaze.

  Darshan slowly straightened. “Yes, Prince of Dannym.”

  Ean blew out his breath and slumped back against the wall. “I thought as much.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have survived that fall from the acropolis. Elae had abandoned me.” He fixed his gaze on Darshan again. "You saved me…slowed my fall.”

  Darshan went back to searching the drawer. “You wouldn’t have saved me just now if you’d recognized me.”

  Ean gave a pained grimace. “I don’t know.” He frowned off out the door. “Maybe. I knew you’d spared my life in Tambarré. I just didn’t know why.” Grey eyes fixed on him again. “I still don’t.”

  Darshan closed the drawer and began searching through the next one.

  Ean rolled his head around on the wall. “How did Shail do this? The way Pelas described Shadow to me…I thought you had to open the portal and lead the way in? All of that about framing space—”

  “This space has clearly been framed by a Warlock.”

  Ean rubbed at one eye. “So…did the Warlock build the tower, or—”

  Darshan shoved the drawer closed and straightened again. “My brother engineered this place with myself in mind. Such excoriating irony suits his temperament.”

  Ean’s brows narrowed as he registered the meaning of Darshan’s words. “So we’re stuck here.” The furrow deepened. “Together.”

  Darshan eyed him amusedly. “Yes, Ean val Lorian.”

  Ean let his head fall back against the wall again. He looked exhausted, and dark circles shadowed his eyes. “Better together than alone in this place, I suppose.” He shot Darshan a haunted look. “I can’t even feel elae.”

  Darshan studied him for a moment. Then he plucked a glass and a bottle from the cabinet and poured wine as he walked. He offered the glass to Ean.

  Ean stared at it, looking mystified.

  “The idea is more useful than its truth, I’ll admit.” Darshan pushed the wine towards him more insistently.

  Ean took the glass but then just gazed perplexedly at it. “What truth is that?”

  “That it doesn’t exist.”

  Ean frowned. “I see.” Though his expression said he clearly didn’t. He drank half the glass in several quick swallows, then pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. “It tastes real enough.”

  “Yes,” Darshan’s gaze tightened slightly, “that is the danger of Shadow.” He sent his awareness outwards again, seeking the edges of framed space. He could almost perceive them…

  “I have a fair idea why Shail tossed me into this place,” Ean set down his empty glass and slumped against the wall again, “but why did he trap you here?”

  Darshan watched him with a tightness behind his eyes. The prince already looked pale. “At the moment we must concern ourselves with finding a way out.” He picked up the roll of knives and the few other things he’d collected and dumped them into a satchel that had been lying on a chair. “How much do you understand about Shadow, Prince of Dannym?”

  Ean grunted. “Not enough.”

  “But you understand the idea of framing space.”

  “In the context of Absolute Being, yes.”

  Darshan held his gaze significantly. “There is no space in Shadow save what a Warlock or other frames. I should be able to perceive the edges of that space, the anchors the Warlocks call starpoints—these are fixed points of dimension, between which space exists.” He shouldered the satchel and motioned for Ean to follow him outside. “That I cannot find the edges of space indicates this space lies within another one, a cube within a cube, if you will. We need to reach that outer cube.”

  Ean pushed up from the hearth to follow him. “How do we do that?”

  Darshan paused at the rim of the ledge and looked over his shoulder to the prince. “We jump.”

  Ean’s expression well conveyed his opinion of this idea.

  Darshan surveyed their surroundings once more, seeking any new hint of meaning in their construction, some clue to Shail’s intent. “The tower where I imprisoned my brother had no door; likewise no satchel such as this for Pelas’s use—what need, when I had him trapped? Yet everything else about that tower has been meticulously recreated, down to the smallest detail.” He searched Ean’s gaze and was pleased to find understanding there. “This is one of Shail’s games. I regret that he’s caught you up in it, for surely this game was designed for me, formulated to test my strengths, not yours. Shail has set the parameters of this little entertainment; now he’ll be watching to see how far I can make it—we can make it—across the actual field of play.”

  Ean glowered down past his boots into the mist. “I actually think I loathe your brother.”

  “He does have a way about him.”

  “Three times.” Ean speared a tormented look at him. “That’s the count of my deaths by Shail’s hand.” He gave a forceful exhale. “I guess I should consider it lucky that this time he sent me here instead.”

  Darshan’s expression tightened. He extended his hand to Ean.

  After a long hesitation, the prince clasped wrists with him and met his gaze. “This is surreal.”

  “Welcome to Shadow, Prince of Dannym.”

  “I meant—”

  Darshan jumped.

  The world became a hazy, rose-tinged nothingness—he recognized it as an overlapping layer where one Warlock’s framed space crossed another’s. He and Ean fell out of the mist between bands of blinding light—

  They stood in a forest of black trees growing in neat, symmetrical rows. Darshan released Ean’s wrist and turned a slow circle, observing the shifting lines as rows merged, separated and merged again beneath his rotating perspective. An undulating carpet of fuchsia-hued grass covered the dark earth. The lines of trees extended as far as the eye could see in every direction, merging into infinity.

  Deciding one row was as good as the next, Darshan set off between the trees while mentally seeking the starpoints of that realm.

  Ean followed wonderingly. “I’ve never seen pink grass before.” He squinted off into the distance. “Can Warlocks make anything they want, any way they want it?”

  “It is, I believe, an expression of your Fifth Law.”

  “A wielder is limited by what he can envision.” The prince was walking with his hand resting on his sword. He tu
rned him a curious frown. “But that only applies to Alorin’s space.”

  “By whose estimation?”

  Ean frowned harder at this.

  While he walked, Darshan continued expanding his awareness outwards in search of the edges of framed space. He perceived many overlapping layers, as of multiple canvases hung to some but not all of the same hooks. Finally he found the starpoints of the specific canvas across which he was walking and merged his awareness with them.

  Deyjiin instantly opened to him.

  Darshan sent his power radiating outwards across the canvas of framed space then, in search of a specific but subtle hum.

  A short time later, he perceived that they were nearing another fold where the canvases of framed space overlapped, though to his eyes, the trees continued endlessly on. “A moment, Ean, if you will.” He turned to face the way they’d just come.

  “What is it?” Ean joined him in staring back along the path they’d been following. “Is someone coming?”

  “It’s truer to say something…ah, here we are.” A whistling sound grew in volume and whisked among the trees until something dark came flying at them.

  Ean hissed and ducked.

  Darshan caught his scepter out of the air with a hard clap. He looked it over, reacquainting himself with the living, mutable patterns that held it to form. Then he wrapped his power around the enchanted stone, stretched it into a walking staff, and glanced to the prince. “Now we may proceed.”

  Ean regarded him bemusedly. “I’m so glad you took care of that.”

  Darshan arched a brow at him. “Do you lead me to believe you would’ve left your weapon behind in this world?”

  “I see your point.”

  They crossed through the overlapping barrier of worlds, stepping from the forest of black trees into a landscape where the trees were as wide as hills, with roots arching several stories high and limbs lost in cloud. Shallow green pools spread beneath the trees, interspersed with islands of moss and breezy blue grass.

  Ean scrubbed at his jaw. “So you have your power back, I take it.”

  Darshan was in that moment finding the starpoints of this new canvas. It didn’t take him long, since two of the dimension points were held in common with the world they’d just departed. “In a sense.” He planted his staff and started off.