FANRYN BLOODHAND AND Thionan Hawkmoon were both waiting when Dhulyn swung the counterweighted chunk of flooring to one side and climbed out, reaching back in to give Alkoryn Pantherclaw a hand up.
“We’ve left the others in the lower chamber,” Dhulyn said, telling her Brothers in a few words just who those ‘others’ were. “Hernyn?” Thionan said.
Dhulyn’s lips parted, but her throat closed on the words.
“Hernyn Greystone the Shield remained behind,” Alkoryn said for her. “That we might escape.”
“In Battle or in Death,” Fanryn said after a long pause. The eyes of the four Brothers met, and for another moment they were silent, in honor of the one who had fallen. And in unspoken prayer that they should fall the same way, on their feet, swords in hand.
“Since his body will be found,” Alkoryn said, breaking their silence at last. “We can expect inquiries, perhaps even a request to search our premises before the day is out. What is it, Thionan?”
Even Dhulyn could see and recognize the slightly furtive look that had crossed Thionan’s eyes.
“About an hour ago,” she said. “I turned away the Tenebro’s tame Scholar and that Navra girl you and Parno brought, Dhulyn, telling them I’d call the City Guard on them. I was joking, but…”
“You spoke truth without knowing it,” Alkoryn said. “Well, at least they have been warned. What else can you tell me?”
Dhulyn only half heard Fanryn’s first words. So Mar and Gundaron of Valdomar had come here. Looking for what?
“Lok-iKol holds the Dome and the city,” Fanryn was saying, leading the way out of the room that, to anyone who didn’t know better, held nothing but the old cistern of Mercenary House. “Of the High Nobles, Jarifo and Esmolo Houses are with him-”
“We saw their men in the Dome,” Dhulyn said as she followed the other women up a short flight of stone steps and through another counterweighted chunk of wall.
“The other Houses are holding off, waiting to see how true Lok-iKol’s arrow will fly, though there’s talk that the Tenebroso will be acclaimed by midday,” Fanryn continued, her face showing her displeasure. “The only one demanding to be shown Tek-aKet Tarkin, living or dead, is the Penradoso.”
“I know that House,” Dhulyn said, thinking back over the years to the last time she’d fought in Imrion. When she and Parno had met.
“You should,” Alkoryn said, pausing with his hand on the wall to take a deeper breath. Dhulyn didn’t like the look of the man, his color was worse than a sleepless night walking underground should make it. “Fen-oNef Penrado was an old ally of Tek-aKet Tarkin’s father, and he fought on the old Tarkin’s side at Arcosa. You’d have seen him there. The odds are very short that he’ll come to Lok-iKol’s side without proof positive that Tek-aKet’s dead.”
“Lok-iKol’s gone ahead and scheduled his anointing for next new moon,” Thionan added. “Twelve days from now. And the Jaldeans have agreed. So old Penrado hasn’t much time to decide.”
They’d reached Alkoryn’s map room by this time, and the old man looked better for being able to sit down in his own chair. Dhulyn leaned against the wall between the two windows, angled into a corner of the map shelves where she couldn’t be seen from outside, and stifled a yawn. If she sat down, she thought, she’d fall right to sleep.
“Is there anything more?” Alkoryn said.
Fanryn considered, her head to one side. “There’s seventeen Brothers in the House,” she said. “Eleven of those from the Carnelian Guard who were out in the streets overnight. They felt their oaths were to Tek-aKet Tarkin, rather than the Carnelian Throne, so when he Fell, they came Home.”
“Did any die in street fighting?” Dhulyn asked.
“None. In fact, they saved some of the other Carnelian Guardsmen, and we’ve got them hidden around the quarter, some in the Old Market. None in the House, of course.” Fanryn looked over at Thionan when her Partner cleared her throat. “Besides the children you sent us, we do have a guest, however, who was visiting in the House when your orders came to shut the gates.” Fanryn waited to be sure she had both Dhulyn and Alkoryn’s attention. “Cullen of Langeron is here,” she said, “an intimate of Yaro of Trevel, and a Racha man, no less. Seeing that Yaro was once of our Brotherhood, we gave them sanctuary.”
“That may turn out to be very lucky.” Alkoryn leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach. “How many Marked have we in the tunnels?”
“Including the Mender’s children Hernyn brought us, seven.”
“Delay no longer. See that they go now, before the day is out. Send also our own youngsters, any waiting for Schooling and any not ready for their badges. Let them go with the Marked as far as the Tourin Road, then to Nerysa Warhammer. The Marked to Pompano, unless Cullen would like to take this opportunity to return to his home, in which case he may want them to accompany him to Langeron. Who is scheduled for the task?”
“The sisters, Jenn IceSea and Jess Riverhorse.”
“Let them choose two others to help them and go with the group to Nerysa. If Cullen of Langeron decides to go, ask him to have word with me before he departs.” He nodded twice and looked up at Fanryn. “If there is nothing else pressing, I’d like a few minutes with Dhulyn if you would, my Brothers.”
Both Fanryn and Thionan straightened to their feet. “I’ll have some food and drink sent up,” Thionan said.
“Considering we may need a place to hide the Tarkin Tek-aKet and his family, it’s a very lucky thing indeed that the Racha man is here.” Alkoryn spoke half to himself. “No one would think to look for them in the Clouds.”
Dhulyn stayed at her perch by the window, consciously relaxing each muscle group as she waited for Alkoryn to turn his full attention to her. She could think of only one reason Alkoryn would have sent both Fanryn and Thionan away. He’s going to ask me to See, she thought. That’s the reason I’m not in the caves with the Tarkin.
“I must say, Dhulyn, my Brother, if the reaction of the Tarkin and his counselor is any indication, I am not at all surprised that you tell no one of your Mark.” Alkoryn sat up straight and laid his hands palm down on the map of Gotterang that still covered his table. “But I would fail in my duties as Senior Brother and Commander of this House if I did not ask you, despite what you and Parno have told me of your experience, is there no way you can look for a Vision that may be of help to us?”
Dhulyn looked at him for a long moment. He was asking her in the same way he would ask a swordsmith how many weapons were ready for use. No judgment, just a request for the kind of information that would help him plan his strategy. A tightness she had not been aware of loosened in her chest. Whatever she said now, he would take her at her word. She was still among Brothers. In Battle or in Death.
“It’s worse than Parno told you,” she said. “Worse than I knew myself. Only very recently I have learned that some of what I See is not the future at all, but the past. If I cannot even tell which is which, the Visions I do See are useless to us.”
The knock at the door was soft, almost as if the person outside wanted the room to be empty. Karlyn-Tan’s “Enter” was so automatic he did not even look up from his lists of work orders. A moment passed before he realized that someone had indeed come in, and that she was waiting for him to speak. He glanced at Semlin-Nor’s face and he sat back, lowering his pen to the tabletop. Born in the House, Semlin was the most unflappable of the House Stewards, and not even the fall of the Old House had given her that gray skin, that tremor in her clasped hands. Seeing her face, Karlyn had the feeling he was going to be sorry to have answered the knock. Maybe even that he’d got up at all today.
“Word has come from the Dome,” Semlin said, and cleared her throat. “The Tenebroso is on his way.”
“Sit down, Sem.” Karlyn shoved his paperwork to one side. There would be time to do it once Lok-iKol had come and gone. Both he and Semlin-Nor had received messages from the Dome in the twenty-four hours since Lok-iKol had taken the Carnelian Throne, asking for one thing or another that the new Tarkin had decided he wanted from his own House. A levy of men from Karlyn-Tan, a favorite chair from Semlin-Nor. There were only two things the Tenebroso could not send for, Karlyn thought, and they were both in this room.
Semlin had shaken her head and remained standing, her hands on the high back of the chair across from him. “Which of us do you suppose he wants?” Semlin’s voice was steady and true, but Karlyn-Tan had an idea from the whiteness of her knuckles on the chairback how much that steadiness cost her.
“I can think of no area in which you’ve failed the House,” he said. “And I shall say so, should I have the chance.”
“As will I for you,” Semlin said, nodding.
Karlyn looked at her carefully, but there was no insincerity in her face. “No.” Karlyn leaned back in his chair, tapping his lips with the fingers of his right hand. “I have reason to believe it will be me. Don’t try to shield me, you can’t know the cost.”
The woman across from him took her lower lip into her teeth, shot him a glance from under her brows before focusing once again on the papers which layered the top of his desk. Karlyn raised his eyebrows as awareness dawned.
“How long did you know?” he said, sitting forward again.
“The House knew, and told me.” The words tumbled from her mouth. “She’d been looking for the golden-haired one, the Lionsmane, for some time. As for the rest,” she spread her hands, “I keep the Keys, man, how could I not know when food was prepared, when rooms were cleaned and light taken to them? Heat? Bedding? As for the rest…” Semlin lowered her eyes, the corners of her mouth turning down. “I gave the Fallen House my solemn oath to make no mention of it, nor of her plans. The next I knew, she was Fallen, and the Mercenary Brothers were gone.”
“That going will be on my head. As well as the going of the Scholar, and the Lady Mar-eMar. As Keys is your function, so mine is Walls.”
The tightness in Semlin-Nor’s shoulders relaxed, but her face did not regain its usual color.
“You’ll see I’m right,” he said, getting to his feet, and taking his sword of office down from its bracket on the wall near the door. Might as well be formal, he thought, it may remind Lok-iKol of his obligations to me, as well as mine to him.
When he looked up from the silvered clasp of his sword belt, Semlin was already at the door. Her smile was a mere baring of teeth and her nod set her earrings swinging. There was little that his reassurances could do. She knew as much as he did about what had gone on in Lok’s rooms when he was just Kir. Maybe more.
They walked without speaking from Karlyn’s tower rooms to the main doors, silent even in those portions of the corridors where they knew they could not be overheard. Semlin-Nor came as far as she could with him, stopping in the outer courtyard, at the lowest steps of the House.
“The Caids bless you,” she whispered through barely moving lips as he stepped off onto the stones of the yard. “The Sleeping God keep you in his dreams.”
“And you.”
He could feel her eyes on his back as he crossed the outer courtyard to the gates to greet his House, the new Tarkin.
“Tell me again of the escape of the Mercenaries.”
It was as he’d suspected. It was only Karlyn-Tan that the Tenebroso had asked to accompany him to his workroom. Lok-iKol sat behind his worktable, staring at the sharp nib of a pen as he rolled it between thumb and fingers. For the first time in many years, he had not invited Karlyn-Tan to sit.
“With respect, my lord,” Karlyn said, “I remind you that they were not in my keeping, and that I know nothing of their leaving.” It was safe for him to say so, as he knew that the keys for Dhulyn Wolfshead’s shackles never left Lok-iKol’s own hands. “Mercenaries do not require assistance in these matters. It is known they cannot be held, if it is their own wish to be gone.”
“And the Scholar, and the Lady Mar-eMar? Were they assisted?”
“Once more, I remind you, my House, that neither I nor any of my men had orders to prevent any members of this House from proceeding about their affairs. We knew of no reason to prevent them from leaving.”
“You remind me.” Lok-iKol pursed his lips and straightening in his chair, dipped the pen into the open bottle of ink lined up perfectly with the piece of parchment waiting to be written on.
“My mother, the Fallen House, often said that as a young man there was no hunter as skilled as you. You will find my Scholar. You will find the girl, and you will find me the Mercenary woman, the Wolfshead.”
“My hunting days are past, my House. I am Walls now.”
“I know you cannot leave the House,” Lok-iKol said. “But you will direct the hunt.”
“Let me speak more plainly, my lord. No, I will not.”
Lok-iKol looked up, lifting the pen from the paper. Karlyn-Tan watched the ink gather into a large drop at the tip of the nib, grow large enough to shiver for a moment in the morning sunlight streaming through the window and fall onto the page beneath. Still he said nothing, waiting for his House to speak.
“I am your House,” Lok-iKol said finally. “And now I am your Tarkin as well. You are my Walls, and you will do as I ask.”
“I am the Walls of House Tenebro, my lord.” Karlyn-Tan nodded, looking directly at the man seated at the worktable. “I am neither yours, nor mine, but Tenebro’s. As I have said to you before, I serve only the House, with my own obligations, and my own judgment. It is my judgment that pursuing these Mercenaries will bring danger to the House. As Tenebroso, you may discharge me, but you cannot overrule my judgment.”
“Then you are discharged.” Lok-iKol looked down at the page before him, twisting his lips when he saw the stain of ink. “Be gone by sunset. Take nothing that belongs to me.”
Karlyn fought to keep his knees locked, to keep his hand from reaching for the support of the chairback next to him. It was as though he suddenly found himself on the edge of a chasm, and only firm control would keep him from plunging down. The chasm had always been there, but he had grown so used to it, he had forgotten it could harm him. As he managed to forget, most of the time, that this man was his half brother. A voice inside him, the voice of the boy who had never known any other home but this one, cried out that he should submit, that he should agree to anything, and his lips parted, but the words that came out…
“I’ll give you a piece of advice,” he said. “There’ll be no need to hunt for the Mercenaries, Lok-iKol. They will come hunting for you.”
Afterward, Karlyn was unable to recall whether he passed anyone on his way back to his rooms. He remembered thinking that he should have been surprised to find Semlin-Nor waiting for him when he got there, but he was not. She was, after all, the closest thing to a friend he had. She did not speak, but he answered the question on her face.
“I am Cast Out.”
She put out a hand for the edge of the table, lowered herself into a chair.
“Do nothing. Say nothing. You are not safe here. Go, we never spoke.” He could not endanger her. He, at least, had seen the outside world, even if not for fifteen years. She had been born in this House, and had never left it. If she were Cast Out, guilty by her association with him, it would destroy her.
Still, he could not help feeling hurt when Semlin ran from the room without further word. The touch on the hand she gave him as she pushed past was not much consolation. He sat down in the chair behind his worktable and let his face fall into his hands. He had until sunset. Until sunset to decide what, if anything, he was allowed to take with him. He had a little money of his own, saved up over the years. A ring and a dagger the Fallen House had given him. They could be considered his. Surely not even Lok-iKol would put him into the street naked, but was there anything in his rooms that was not of Tenebro colors, or which didn’t bear the Tenebro crest?
Karlyn took a deep breath and looked up. From the angle of the sunlight on the desk, he’d been sitting here the better part of an hour already. And he had not given any thought to where he would go, once he’d found clothing. Was the Blue Dove Tavern still in business, he wondered, thinking of the last place he had stayed before coming to Tenebro House, and did it still rent rooms cheaply?
Leave the House. The fiery heat of his anger had finally died away, leaving a tightness in his throat and chest. He forced himself to take a deep breath, and then another. A sound made him get to his feet just as the door to the hallway opened. It was not, as he’d expected, Semlin-Nor, or even his assistant Jeldor-San, having just learned of her unexpected promotion, but the Lord Dal-eDal.
His hands full, Dal-eDal kicked the door shut behind him. In his right hand he carried a bulging saddle pack, and in his left, held by the scabbard, a sword. Both of these he put on the table in front of Karlyn.
“I did not knock, since I have learned that these are no longer your rooms.”
Karlyn-Tan inclined his head.
“I have further learned that you have been told to leave with nothing that the Lord Lok-iKol has given you. Therefore, I have brought you clothing and a sword.”
By the tone of his voice, and the expression on his face, Dal-eDal might have been passing Karlyn the bread at a communal table and not the tools that might save his life.
“I may need to report that they come from your hand.”
Dal-eDal shrugged. “Consider it reported. My cousin has returned to the Carnelian Dome, and I am the heir.”
Karlyn nodded his understanding, feeling a tightness in his shoulders relax. It was to find Dal-eDal that Semlin-Nor had left in such a hurry. “In that case, I accept.”
It was Dal-eDal’s turn to nod. He straightened his cuffs as if searching for something more to say.
“Did he want you to find the Tarkin?”
“You mean Tek-aKet Culebroso? The former Tarkin?”
Dal smiled. “Yes, that is what I meant.”
Karlyn took a deep breath, found further tension releasing. “No,” he said. “The Scholar, the Lady Mar-eMar, and the Mercenary Dhulyn Wolfshead.”
Dal leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest. “What is it about this woman? He tricks Mar-eMar into bringing her to Gotterang, and now, with all that must be occupying him in the less than two days he’s been on the Carnelian Throne, he finds time to leave the Dome to ask you to find her?”
“The Scholar would know.”
“And if we had the Scholar,” Dal said, “we would know.”
We? Karlyn thought. Dal presumed much on the basis of clothing and a sword. Karlyn believed he could put his hands on both the youngsters pretty easily, thanks to Jeldor-San’s fast thinking in having them followed and to his own tracking skills, but he saw no need to tell Dal-eDal as much.
The two men exchanged a long look.
“If you would,” Dal said finally, “once you know where you are, send me word.”
“Why not?”
Dal-eDal’s parting smile was more than half grimace.
“Just as soon as I figure out who you’ll tell,” Karlyn-Tan said once the door had closed again.
Parno was using the sharpening stone he’d found in the underground chamber’s weapons kit to put a better edge on one of the knives he’d been given from the Tarkin’s armory. As soon as he could get upstairs, he’d be able to recover those of his own weapons-including his best sword-that had, along with the rest of his pack, been left with their horses at Mercenary House. He scowled at the knife, moving it this way and that as the light caught the edge. Was it really only a week ago?
Parno looked over the edge of the blade to find Bet-oTeb looking at him. The Tarkin-to-be looked very solemn, her eyes huge in the chamber’s uncertain light. “My father wants you,” she said. “If you would be so good as to come with me.”
Parno bowed to her, put the knife back into the sheath he wore at his belt, and followed Bet-oTeb to the far end of the room, where the Tarkin sat with his wife. Tek-aKet smiled his thanks to his daughter and indicated that Parno should seat himself on the next bed.
The Tarkin looked tired, as well he might, having slept only a few hours after being up most of the night. Parno doubted he would have recognized the man had he merely encountered him on the street, any more than his second cousin appeared to recognize him. There was a world of difference between the seventeen year old he had been and the bearded, tattooed, and heavily-muscled Mercenary Brother he had become. The last time Parno had seen Tek-aKet, back when he himself had still been Par-iPar Tenebro, Tek had been thirteen, gangly and round-shouldered from study. Fourteen years later, Parno could see the old Tarkin in the shape of Tek’s eyes, the breadth of his shoulders, and the firm set of his jaw.
Tek-aKet now leaned forward until their heads were almost touching.
“Zelianora and I have been taking thought,” the Tarkin of Imrion said. “Am I correct in my understanding that you can speak for your Partner?”
Parno nodded. “We are the same person,” he said.
“Can you tell me, then, whether she will use her Mark to help me?”
“More than she has already done,” the Tarkina said, acknowledgment and gratitude in her voice. Her husband flashed her a smile and nodded.
Parno looked down at his hands, clasped between his knees. The man thought he had a great tool, and who could blame him… Parno had once thought so himself. Experience had taught Parno differently, but how was he to convince Tek-aKet? Did Dhulyn escape from Lok-iKol only to fall into his cousin’s hands? Parno looked at Zelianora Tarkina, who was watching her husband’s face with steady dark eyes. Composed, almost serene. He looked back at the Tarkin. This man was not like Lok-iKol, he thought. Nothing like.
“One time,” he said quietly, “Dhulyn woke up crying. She’d Seen a farmer drowning a basket of kittens. Is that the kind of thing you want her to tell you?”
Tek-aKet sat up straight, letting his hands fall to his knees. “You’re saying she can’t control it.”
“I’m saying she can’t control it.” Parno rubbed his chin. He’d kill for the time to shave and a nice sharp razor, though he feared he’d have to wait until he left Imrion to do it. “At first, I thought it was just some kind of Outlander stubbornness. She hated the thought that I might be watching her in the morning, trying to see in her face some sign that she’d Seen something in the night. That I was waiting for her to tell me what to do next, instead of using my own brain. ‘I’m not a crutch,’ she used to say to me. But then I realized that she wasn’t trying to teach me a moral lesson, but telling me the real truth. Her Mark wasn’t something that we were going to able to use, to lean on.”
“How does it work, then?” the Tarkina asked in her musical voice.
Parno shrugged. “It comes when it comes, waxes and wanes like the moon. Strongest with her woman’s time, as if the blood brings it, and if she’s touching someone, she’s likely to See something pertaining to them. But not always. And sometimes she’ll get Visions in between, not so clear, but sometimes.” He looked up to find them both watching him.
“And you have to understand, there’s never any context to them. The farmer with the kittens? She didn’t know what country he was in, or when it would happen. If we’d wanted to stop it, we wouldn’t have known where to go. She’ll help you,” he said. “We both will. But don’t count on her Mark to win for you.”
“And since the foreign ambassadors should be met with as quickly as possible, my lord, I’ve arranged for an informal supper in the east reception room. That way you can speak to them all at once. The Berdanan ambassador is particularly insistent concerning the whereabouts of the Tarkina and her children, as they are the heirs of her sister, Queen Alliandra.” The voice of the Tarkin’s Chief Counselor, Gan-eGan, was flat and colorless. But then, Lok-iKol thought, that more or less described the voice of everyone in the Carnelian Dome.
“It would not be more diplomatic to see him at least individually?” Lok-iKol frowned, resisting the desire to rub at his eye. He’d managed only a few hours’ sleep in the last two days, and right now he felt they hadn’t done him much good. The day had started well, the Dome and city were his, and the Assembly of Houses had met and accepted him as Tarkin-though not quite by acclamation. House Penrado had pleaded illness and absented himself, as Lok had expected, but he had not actually protested. Lok would do something about that later.
But the day had not continued well. Lok closed his right hand into a fist. He had not expected Karlyn-Tan to defy him, and now he would have to find someone else to hunt for the Seer.
“A meeting at this time, my lord Tarkin, is a mere formality. They acknowledge you, and you remind them that existing relations will continue. Your reassurances to the Berdanan ambassador will carry more weight when spoken in front of such witnesses. When I said ‘informal, ’ I meant in dress and preparation, not in topic of discussion.”
“Very well.”
As Lok spoke, a page entered the spacious room that had been Tek-aKet’s public study. Lok-iKol let out his breath with such force that Gan-eGan looked up from the mark he was making on his parchment list.
“The Priest Beslyn-Tor is here, my lord,” the page said. Gan-eGan dropped pen and parchments, and the page courteously stooped to help him retrieve them.
“My apologies, but I have no leisure for him today.”
“My lord Tarkin.”
Lok realized that Beslyn-Tor had followed on the page’s heels and was already in the room. He suppressed the irritation that immediately rose to twist his lips. Gan-eGan looked around, brows raised and head twitching as he backed away from the priest. Lok’s eye narrowed. It seemed there was something between Gan-eGan and the old priest. Something unpleasant.
Lok smiled. He’d expected Beslyn-Tor to turn up, though not quite so quickly.
“More wine and a glass for my friend,” Lok said to the page, ignoring the Jaldean’s shaken head and gesture of refusal. He’d never seen the man take either food or drink, and Beslyn-Tor was noticeably thinner than he had been when Lok had first met him, though he showed no other signs of ritual fasting. His color was good, his grip firm, his jade-green eyes particularly clear and his movements, as he took the chair next to the worktable without waiting to be invited, graceful.
Once more Lok-iKol suppressed a frown. “As you heard me say,” he began, “I have no great store of leisure today. If you would tell me in what way I can assist you?”
“I have given you what you desired, yet you withhold my payment.”
Again a darting glance from Gan-eGan, and another from the page, as he came in with a tray bearing a fresh flask of wine and a second goblet.
Lok looked at the tray as the page set it down on the table. “Leave us,” he said.
Unexpectedly, Gan-eGan did not protest. Hugging his parchment lists to his chest like a shield, he scuttled from the room. The page looked from the old counselor to Lok-iKol and back again, as if he might speak.
Lok raised his remaining eyebrow.
The page inclined his head, though his lips thinned as he turned to go. No one in Tenebro House would ever have looked at Lok like that. What has Tek-aKet been teaching his servants?
Only when they were alone did Lok sit down in the Tarkin’s chair. “I must have time to solidify my position before I can give you what we agreed upon. A moon, perhaps two.” As the priest narrowed his eyes, Lok smiled and spread his hands. “Come,” he said. “Have we not prospered?” He leaned forward and poured himself a glass of the wine. It was a dark, full red that Lok knew from experience would taste of the oak it had been aged in. “When I am anointed, I will prepare the proclamations that shall give you what you’ve asked for.” He sipped at his cup of wine, savoring it in his mouth a moment before swallowing. And, once I’m anointed, I won’t need you. “The support and countenance of the Tarkin for yourself and your followers. Dominion over the Marked.”
“Why do you wait? Every delay allows the Sleeping God more time to awaken.”
Lok ground his teeth. The man’s beliefs were becoming more than a nuisance. Lok set his wineglass back on the table, fixing his guest with his eye. The Jaldean was not even looking at him. “I have declared Tek-aKet Fallen, but in the absence of a body, there are rumors,” he said, with more force than he had intended. “Rumors which force me to move much more slowly than I had originally planned.”
Beslyn-Tor brought his gaze back from the distance and fixed it on Lok-iKol, the jade-green eyes as bright as though they’d absorbed the light of the setting sun that streamed through the windows. The new Tarkin of Imrion suddenly wished he was not sitting down. He would feel stronger on his feet. It seemed the whole room had darkened.
“You think to put me off. I warn you, do nothing you will regret.”
Lok brought his fingertips together and tapped his lips. “Do you threaten me? You stirred the people against the Marked; that is a great power you have. But Tek-aKet was taken by surprise, I will not be. That trick cannot be played again.”
The Jaldean priest waved the statement away with the closest thing to a smile Lok had ever seen him make.
“I seek to give you what you want most.”
“And that is?”
“You have named it. Power.”
Lok-iKol felt the cord of his eye patch move as he drew in his brows. “I am Tarkin.”
“Is that the extent of your ambition? What if there were more power to be had?”
Lok sat back, gripping the chair arms with his hands. This was too much.
“What? Will the Sleeping God bless me and hold me in his dreams? Do you think me as gullible as the rabble you rouse to frenzy? You are a useful tool, Beslyn-Tor, and I will reward you as promised, but do not presume too much on my gratitude.”
As a sign that the audience was over, Lok-iKol stood. Beslyn-Tor sighed and heaved himself to his feet, his age suddenly showing in the noise of his effort.
“My lord Tarkin, “ he said, lowering himself to one knee. “Forgive an impatient man. Allow me to be the first to give you my allegiance.” He bowed his head and reached up his right hand.
Lok-iKol hesitated, but there was no irony, no smug sarcasm, nor even any calculation on the old man’s face. He took the offered hand between his own. The priest’s skin was warm and dry, his grip firmer than Lok would have expected in so old a man. Lok licked suddenly dry lips.
“I receive…” he began, and shook his head in irritation. For a moment he couldn’t remember the words. He blinked and focused again on Beslyn-Tor’s face, the man’s jade-green eyes. The room around them grew darker.
He threw back his head, lungs breathing deeply. He had touched this shape before, used its eyes, so it took only moments of weakness, seconds of disorientation before he wore it easily. Younger. Stronger. For a moment the lost eye distracted him, but a second’s concentration removed that difficulty. For another moment the original inhabitant’s shrieking drew away his attention, but that was swiftly dealt with. The same concentration allowed him to review what this one knew.
The Seer was lost.
For a moment the body’s heart stopped beating.
She must be found, this Mercenary, this Wolfshead. Who could do so?
The Scholar. He had Found once already. But the Scholar himself was missing. Karlyn-Tan Cast Out. Dal-eDal. That one always knew more than he told.
He looked down at the old man on the floor.
“Jelran,” he called and was pleased by how swiftly the page entered.
“Have the junior priest who accompanied Beslyn-Tor enter. His master appears to have suffered a stroke.”
The young page glanced at the figure on the floor and licked his lips. “Of course, my lord.”
He watched, feeling the inside of this shape, testing the strengths, tasting the skills, as they helped the stricken man dodder out of the room.
“Jelran? Tell Gan-eGan to cancel the ambassadors’ supper and send for my cousin Dal-eDal to come to me.”
“At once, my lord.”
I have got nothing to worry about, Dal-eDal told himself, nodding to the pale-faced Dome Guard as he dismounted at the Ironwood Gate. If Lok was ready to have him killed, he needn’t bring Dal to the Carnelian Dome to do it. Far more likely to suffer some “accident” at home, like so many others of the Tenebro family. No, the difference today was that the summons came not only from his House, but from his Tarkin.
Or someone’s Tarkin, anyway.
Dal smiled and tossed his reins to the waiting stable girl, thanked his escort and began the long walk across the fitted flagstones of the wide interior yard to the Carnelian Dome’s Steward of Keys, waiting on the steps of the grand entrance known as the Tarkin’s Door. Like the stable girl, and a couple of the Carnelian Dome Guards for that matter, the Steward’s face showed a pallor and a stiffness that spoke of underlying uncertainty. Not unlike, Dal thought, the look on the faces of the people in Tenebro House on the morning the House fell.
“Not your first time here, at any rate, Lord Dal,” the Steward said with the ghost of his usual smile on his lips.
Dal tilted his head with a smile of his own. He felt and recognized the need for normal conversation in these most abnormal times. “I barely remember that event,” he said. The Steward gestured, and Dal preceded the man through the gateway. “I was four when my father became head of his Household, and I came with him to give his oaths to the Tenebroso, and to the old Tarkin.”
The Steward made a half-aborted motion with his right hand, and Dal coughed. So it was better not to mention even Tek-aKet’s father, was it?
“I wasn’t Steward then,” the man said. “I don’t believe I remember your father.”
“He was only in Gotterang once more. In fact, he died on his way home from that last visit to the Tenebroso. Fell from his horse.”
“You became Household then? Or was there an older sibling?”
“No, I was Kir for my Household, but at eight years old, my House thought it better to put a Steward in place and brought me to her in Gotterang.” No need to tell the Carnelian Dome’s Steward of Keys that such young children were used as hostages; the man well knew that for himself.
“And, of course, you’ve been here ever since. Once in the capital, who would want to leave?”
Dal smiled, his lips pressed tightly together. Ever since. Ever since his father, who must have guessed something about that summons from which he never returned, had kissed him good-bye whispering, “Stay alive, Son. See you survive to avenge me.”
Still alive, Papa, he thought. Accomplishing that much at least.
“It must have been strange for you,” the Steward said, as he opened the third set of double doors for Dal to walk through. “I remember being very homesick when I first came here as a child.” Dal stood to one side as two pages, heads down and mumbling their excuses, came stumbling through the opened door.
“Not exactly homesick. Though there were no children my age in Tenebro House,” he said, after the young pages were out of earshot. “And I’m afraid I found my cousin Lok-iKol very… impressive.”
The Steward of Keys, with a glance at Dal’s face, nodded his quick understanding.
At first, Dal had been too shocked by grief and the change in his circumstances to remember his father’s last words to him. Afterward, he’d needed to be sure that it wasn’t just homesickness and an aversion to Lok’s company that made him want to kill his one-eyed cousin. The longer he waited, the harder it became to do anything. If he killed Lok openly, he would be killed himself. Failing in his father’s first command to him. If he killed Lok by stealth, he’d become the heir, something he’d never wanted-still didn’t want. So he’d spent years studying the situation, gathering information, in part to protect himself, in part to find a safe way of enacting his father’s vengeance. All in all, he’d been gathering information for a long time.
When he’d realized just why Parno Lionsmane had seemed so familiar, only the iron discipline of years had stopped him from running singing through the House. He’d thought all his problems were solved. As kidnapped Mercenary Brothers they would kill Lok, and as a first cousin, Par-iPar Tenebro would set aside his Mercenary Brotherhood, become heir, and Dal could finally go home.
But the Brothers were gone, and Lok was now Tarkin.
“My lord.” The Steward of Keys motioned Dal to one side. Approaching them down the corridor were three individuals dressed completely in dark green, escorted by two guards in Tenebro colors and two Jaldean priests. From the corner of his eye, Dal looked at the Steward’s impassive face. For it was clear from their air of stumbling confusion that something had been done to these Marked. One of them, a short stout woman, was supporting a man almost twice her height, holding him around the waist. She merely looked red-eyed and blotchy, tears still rolling down stiff cheeks, but the man was vacant-eyed and drooling. The third, perhaps their son, was white as paper, and breathed shallowly as if in great pain.
“I thought the Marked were being taken to the Jaldean High Shrine,” Dal murmured to the Steward of Keys.
“Last night the new Tarkin gave orders for them to be brought here,” the Keys said. Something in the man’s voice made Dal look at him closely, but the Keys kept his eyes lowered. His lips, Dal saw, were trembling.
Once the Marked had passed, Dal and the Steward of Keys fell silent. They continued down the hall until it widened before the delicately carved doors of the Cedar Room, the small audience chamber. Here, there were comfortable cushioned chairs set out for waiting dignitaries, grouped around small empty tables that normally carried jellied fruits, salted nuts, and carafes of wine and cider. The place, usually crowded with petitioners and the younger children of the Noble Houses, was deserted.
Suddenly, Dal didn’t want to go any farther.
“If you would wait a moment,” the Keys of the Dome said. “I will see if the Tarkin is ready for you.”
Dal sank into one of the cushioned chairs. Once again he reminded himself that Lok need not bring him to the Dome to kill him. So what did Lok want? Dal thought about the message he’d received this morning from Karlyn-Tan, that the former Steward of Walls could be found at the Blue Dove Tavern. And where, Dal wondered would Gundaron the Scholar and the Lady Mar-eMar be found? Dal did not believe for a moment that the two had anything to do with the Fall of the House, but it was evident that Lok wanted them, and that meant Dal might gain something by finding them himself.
Lok had asked Karlyn-Tan to find the Mercenary woman, and the Steward of Walls had refused and been Cast Out. Was Dal now about to be asked? And if he refused? What would Lok do then?
The Keys pushed both doors of the small audience room open, gone so pale that his mustache and eyebrows stood out dark against his skin. “You may go in, Lord Dal-eDal.” He gestured toward the open doors.
Stomach twisting, wishing he had the courage to simply turn and walk away, Dal went through.
Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t Lok in what was clearly the Tarkin’s great chair-carved out of white cedar, studded with carnelians, and just smaller than the official throne-talking to Chief Counselor Gan-eGan. Dal hovered, unwilling to approach more closely. The older man was on his knees on Lok’s right side, his hands clinging to the arm of the great chair, as a man in the sea clings to the side of a raft. Dal licked his lips and took a hesitant step forward.
With a soft sigh the counselor stood, lifting a trembling hand to his mouth, sketched a shaky bow, and headed for the door. Dal actually had to step out of the man’s way, as Gan-eGan-usually so punctilious it was almost laughable-passed him without acknowledgment of any kind.
“Cousin.” Lok’s voice was curiously flat, as if he was too tired to speak with more animation. Perhaps he’d found being Tarkin to be more work than he’d expected, Dal thought as he crossed the floor to his cousin’s side. He performed a more elaborate version of the counselor’s bow and straightened, forcing a smile to his lips.
“All is well at the House,” Dal said. “Tenryn-For is settling well into his duties as Walls.” As well as he can after less than twenty-four hours, and after Karlyn-Tan’s Deputy Jeldor-San had unexpectedly refused the post.
Lok nodded, but with an air of a man who is listening to something else. He got to his feet and gestured to Dal to fall in beside him as he walked toward the smaller, private door behind the great chair.
“Come with me, Cousin,” he said. “I would ask something of you.”
If I didn’t know better, Dal thought as he followed Lok through the door and nodded at the redheaded page who waited there and fell into step behind them, I’d think he was drunk. There was just something a bit too careful, too focused, about the way Lok was speaking-and walking, now that Dal thought about it.
Any other time Dal would have welcomed the chance to walk through the private corridors of the Carnelian Dome, places that the public-even relations like the Tenebros-never saw. As it was, he kept his eyes on his cousin, and only took in the occasional detail, here a portrait of a heavily bewigged Tarkina, there a rug showing the bright dyes that marked it as a product of Semlor in the west.
Lok finally stopped outside a thick oak door, reinforced with embedded iron bars, whose massive frame was carved to look like snakes. Treasure room or armory, Dal thought, recognizing the motifs of the Culebro Tarkins. The page, pale, wide-eyed, and tight-lipped, once more took up his position to the right of the door, ready to wait until he was wanted.
Lok unlocked the thick door with a final twist of the key and walked straight into the room. Dal stopped dead on the threshold, until he realized that the reason his mouth felt dry was that it was hanging open. Treasure room he had thought, and treasure room it was, but thought is one thing, and sight another. A long central aisle stretched out between tiered shelving, every shelf covered with dark blue felted cloth, and every finger span of cloth covered. Plates and tableware used on state occasions filled more than half the room, personal jewelry by the basketful-including the cat’s-eye rubies the Tarkina had brought with her on her marriage-and, halfway along one side, the Tarkin’s gold crown, bracelets, ear clasps, and pectoral of woven snakes, every one with gleaming carnelian eyes.
“The lists say there is a relic of the Sleeping God here,” Lok said, so quietly that Dal almost did not hear him. “A bracelet with green stones.”
Dal took a step forward. “Did you wish me to look for it?” His voice sounded harsh in his own ears, but Lok did not seem to notice.
“No, I wish you to find me the Mercenary Dhulyn Wolfshead.” Lok stopped, turned to the shelves on his right and picked up a pendant, a square-cut emerald set in silver wire. He frowned and set it down again.
Dal almost smiled as he watched his cousin pick up yet another piece of jewelry with a green stone and set it down again. Finally, a chance to learn why Lok found this woman so important.
“The Mercenary?” Dal said, careful to show no real interest. “What is it about this woman…?”
Lok had stopped again, this time to pick up a bracelet made of gold links set with square smooth-polished stones. From that, and from the color and thickness of the gold, it was obviously very old. These stones, too, were green, but seemed likely to be jade. As Dal watched, Lok pushed it on over his hand, barely able to move it past the root of his thumb, to where it hung closely about his wrist.
Dal cleared his throat to ask his question again, but he hesitated, as his cousin had closed his eye, tilting his head back as if he were listening to some favorite music. Glancing down, Dal saw the bracelet on Lok’s wrist move, as if it were suddenly a living thing, its colors suddenly painfully bright, and then fading, dissolving as it was absorbed into Lok’s wrist, until it seemed he had a tattoo there, where his skin had been clear and clean a moment before. Even as Dal took a breath to exclaim, the tattoo faded, and Lok’s skin was clean again. Dal looked up, but his cousin’s eye was focused on the spot on his wrist where the bracelet had been. And his shadow, cast on the wall behind him was not his own, but larger, darker, than it should have been, and somehow the wrong shape. Dal’s own shadow was beside it, pale and small and normal.
“Lok, what…?” His voice was paper thin and Dal cleared his throat. Without moving the rest of his body, Lok twisted his head to look at him and Dal saw that Lok’s right eye, clear and beautiful in the unmarred side of his face was green. Not crystal blue as it had always been, but a soft jade green. And Lok’s eye patch had shifted, perhaps because of how he’d turned his head and Dal lifted his left hand to his own face, as if to indicate to his cousin what had happened, but he froze, unable to move.
Both of Lok’s eyes were green. Both of them.