KARLYN-TAN HAD TO STEEL himself not to twitch away from people, not to hug the walls as he walked down the street. He recognized his feelings as the horizon sickness, though he’d never suffered from the fear of open spaces before. There was not too much space, he told himself, just more than he was used to-and too many strangers. Already this afternoon he’d had to convince two young toughs that he wasn’t someone they could prey on. Thank the Caids, Dal-eDal had given him a sword. He now walked with his hand openly resting on the sword’s hilt, as a message to any other tough boys in the area.
He kept walking, following the market crowds into the Great Square, resisting the urge to run back to his inn-run away from outside. He took a deep breath and looked around him, forcing his shoulders down. Was it his imagination, or was everyone around him walking too quickly, heads ducked, cloaks held more closely than the warm day called for? He frowned. He’d been Walls too long to remember what people on the outside were like.
Karlyn walked directly across the square, heading for the steps in the southeast corner that would lead him out into Swordsmiths Street and Mercenary House.
There were several people on the wide stone steps leading from Great Square to the street below and Karlyn’s attention kept being drawn to one of them in particular. Fair-haired, medium height, fair width of shoulders… and the right shoulder hitched up a bit, as if he was used to carrying a pack or heavy bag slung over it. Horizon sickness forgotten, Karlyn increased his pace. He knew that walk and that shoulder hitch even without the Scholar’s tunic; he’d been watching them around Tenebro House for the last two years. So Gundaron of Valdomar was still in Gotterang, and where was he heading now?
Mar sat in the window hole of the ruin just an alley length away from their hiding spot under the old floorboards of the abandoned granary. She’d been the one to go for water this morning, while Gun went to see if he could get into his Library. They weren’t going to be able to stay out on the streets very much longer, not unless they wanted to start selling things-and what did they have to sell but a few articles of clothing and the tools of their trades? If it wasn’t for having to hide from every pair of guards, and every sound of horses’ hooves, they would have been well able to make a living selling their skills, but as it was, they’d be running out of money and things to barter very quickly.
She was listening carefully for the short three-note whistle that would mean Gundaron had entered the alley. She’d answer with the agreed-upon variation, and then watch from her hiding spot as he walked to the end of their lane past the entrance to their cellar and turned the corner. She’d wait for a count of fifty and, if the lane stayed empty, she’d whistle again. Gundaron would double back and meet her as she let herself down from her window hole. This was just one of the ways they’d figured out between them-her from stories she’d picked up from Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane, Gundaron from his fund of reading-of watching if anyone was following them, or if anyone had found their hiding place. Still, Mar was getting heartily sick of spending most of her time watching her back.
When the whistle finally came, she answered it, and Gundaron glanced up to where he knew she would be. When their eyes met, a new look passed over his face, a familiar look.
Oh, Caids. I know that look. She’d seen it on Parno Lionsmane’s face when he looked at Dhulyn Wolfshead. She’d wanted someone to look at her that way. The blood hammered in her ears and her hands shook, even as a small flower of joy bloomed under her heart.
“We can’t go on like this much longer,” Mar said, keeping her eyes on the ties to her pack, the knowledge of what she’d seen on Gundaron’s face too new, too fresh to acknowledge. “Money’s not all we can run out of. So far we’ve been lucky, no one’s cared enough about us to steal from us or to turn us in, but how long will that last?” She groped into her pack for the metal cup they shared. “We need help, and we need it soon.”
“It’s a judgment on us,” Gun said.
Mar’s hand stilled. “What do you mean?”
“We’re surrounded by people we can’t trust,” he said, looking up from the small lamp he was refilling with the last of their scrounged oil. “Maybe it’s because we can’t be trusted.”
“I’m trusting you,” she said, touching his forearm lightly with her fingertips. It felt just as hard as the metal cup in her other hand. “And you’re trusting me. And… we were used by the people we did trust, both of us,” she added. “That makes a difference.”
Gundaron rubbed his face with both hands, the corners of his mouth turned down. “I don’t think the Mercenary Brotherhood are going to feel that way about me.”
Mar pressed her lips together. She did trust him, just as he trusted her. And yet there was still something Gun wasn’t telling her. What could be worse than what she’d done, betraying people who had saved her life? Maybe it was because she hadn’t read the stories Gun had, maybe it was because she’d spent so much time with the Mercenaries, but she honestly didn’t believe she or Gun were in any danger from the Curse of Pasillon.
“Gun,” she said finally, handing him the cup. “Maybe we should try to get out of the city.”
He looked at her, their fingers touching on the cold metal of the cup. “But you wanted to tell them, the Wolfshead, I mean, and Lionsmane.”
She nodded, lower lip caught between her teeth. “We’ve been sent away from Mercenary House twice now,” she said. “What if we don’t get a chance to tell them?”
“Tell them what, Lady Mar?”
Interesting, Karlyn thought once the cup had been picked up and they’d made room for him in the only corner high enough to let them all sit upright. They’d dropped the only thing that they might possibly have used as a weapon, to cling to each other. He wondered if they’d realized it themselves. Judging from the way they carefully avoided touching in the confined space, Karlyn rather thought they had.
Like anyone who’d commanded troops, he was a good judge of character. The girl looked nervous, he thought, and a little too pale. But her jaw was firm, and her mouth a resolute line. She was tougher than her noble birth and her town fostering might lead some to believe. After all, she’d come over the Antedichas Mountains with two Mercenaries, met the Cloud People, and lived to tell of it-not to mention surviving those particular four days in Tenebro House. Karlyn looked to the Scholar.
Though he was a few years older than Mar-eMar, Gundaron was likely the younger in experience-that being the trouble with book learning. The boy was frankly terrified, in Karlyn’s opinion. Where the girl was pale, the boy was white-faced; where she was firm and resolute, he held himself so stiffly he had a slight tremor in his hands. And he blinked too much. But for all that, Karlyn thought, impressed almost against his will, Gundaron was keeping his fear firmly in check. What could have frightened him so badly? This was the first real emotion Karlyn had ever seen in the boy. What had woken him from his Scholar’s daydream? Was it the girl? Or something more sinister?
“We didn’t harm the House,” Lady Mar said, breaking into his thoughts. “I know you have no reason to believe us, but we didn’t.”
“Perhaps I have no reason,” Karlyn said, “but I believe you. What decided you to leave when you did?”
Lady Mar took a deep breath. She was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she’d arrived with the Mercenary brothers, now much creased and dirty. But she seemed not to notice any discomfort. “I’d been used,” she said, a bitter twist to her mouth. “I didn’t know how badly just at first. I knew I’d been lied to, though, and I couldn’t stay where there was no one I could trust.”
Tough, all right. Tougher than some other cousins of the House he could name. Karlyn turned to Gundaron. The Scholar clamped his jaw, not like someone determined not to speak, Karlyn thought, but like someone who expected the words to burn on their way out. The Lady Mar put her dust-grimed hand on the Scholar’s arm.
“I know you have no reason to believe me,” Karlyn said, deliberately echoing Mar-eMar’s words. “But you can trust me. I did not choose to leave Tenebro House, I have been Cast Out for refusing to hunt for Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane. I believe we are allies.” The two youngsters glanced at each other before looking back at him. Was there hope in their eyes? “What is this you were saying about Mercenary House,” he asked them.
“We’ve amends to make,” Lady Mar said, her eyes flicking toward the Scholar. “And information to give. But we can’t get anyone to listen to us.”
Karlyn nodded. “I believe I can,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up. I believe they might listen to me.”
Parno turned the Tarkin’s sword gently out of the way, using the palm of his hand against the flat of the blade, and, letting his own sword drop to the floor, poked Tek-aKet in the sternum with the forefinger of his right hand. Both men, the Tarkin red-faced but smiling, stepped back from one another.
“You’re not afraid of the blade, which is good,” Dhulyn said, stepping forward as Parno retrieved his sword. “But you kept your own too low, and too far off the central line. Watch.” She took the Tarkin’s place and came at Parno slowly, her movements exaggerated in such a way that Tek-aKet Tarkin would have no trouble following. She held her sword so that the sharpened tip sagged below her waist. As she advanced on Parno, he once again turned the blade aside with the palm of his hand.
“Do you see?” Dhulyn said. “Your blade was off-center, and at an angle that made it easy for him to turn it aside, even without another weapon of his own. Now watch where I have mine.” Dhulyn executed almost the identical move, except this time Parno was able to turn her blade aside only by sacrificing his own forward momentum, and losing any chance to turn the move to his advantage. She and Parno lifted their points and stepped back.
“Did you see, Lord Tarkin?”
Tek-aKet nodded, brow furrowed. “I thought I’d had good teachers, but you’ve shown me things-” He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “I didn’t think to watch his bare hand.”
Dhulyn sheathed her sword and extended both her hands to show the fine scars on the palms. “When it’s life and death, and not for show, everything is a weapon. Kill or be killed, all battles come down to this.”
“Kill or be killed,” Tek-aKet repeated, his dark brows drawn down into a vee over his clear blue eyes. “I think you have shown me more than a Shora of offense and defense, Dhulyn Wolfshead, I think you have answered a question for me.” He looked up at them, the sheen of sweat drying on his upper lip. “I think I must take back the Carnelian Throne.”
“There was some doubt of this?” Parno’s eyebrows could not raise any higher.
Tek-aKet nodded, his eyes hooded. “I never wanted to be Tarkin,” he said, a half smile playing about his lips. “My brother died of a fever, and I had to take his place. It did actually occur to me that this was my chance to take Zella and the children and go to her sister in Berdana.”
“And what decides you against that?” Dhulyn said.
“Zella and the children,” he said. “My family will never be safe with Lok-iKol Tenebroso on the throne. No matter where we go, what we do, he will see us as a threat until he hunts us down and kills us all. He’s been doing exactly that to his own House for years.” He lowered his eyes again, and his face turned to stone. “But there is also this. Lok-iKol is not Tarkin of Imrion. Neither by inheritance nor by Ballot. I find it is, after all, that simple. I will not walk away from my throne, my people, my responsibilities, and leave them to that jackal. I must find some place, some fortress or other, that I can use to rally my army. If I move quickly, then many who are now confused will come to us.”
“Well,” Parno said lightly. “We’re looking for work, Lord Tarkin. We’d give you a good rate.”
The sound of hoofbeats on the cobbles of the lane outside the tavern drew every eye to the window and three of the regulars to the door. Karlyn-Tan stayed in his seat by the inner window that let out on the stable yard, polishing the buckle of his sword belt in the sunshine that found its way through the open shutters. The two youngsters were in his room upstairs, smuggled in the back way and even now taking advantage of warmed water and soap. It wasn’t until it was obvious the horse was stopping that Karlyn put aside the buckle and polishing cloth and turned toward the door. He knew the sound of a horse that was being ridden, and there was only one noble he could think of who might have reason to come to this particular inn.
Dal-eDal entered and stepped immediately to one side so as not to present a silhouette in the entrance-and also to let his two guards enter with him. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the relative dimness of the taproom, his chin lifted as he caught sight of Karlyn-Tan. He crossed the half-empty room with a nod at the innkeeper behind the bar and joined Karlyn at his corner table. Karlyn smiled when the nobleman sat down with his back to rest of room-evidently Dal was sure that Karlyn would warn him if there should be any trouble. Or perhaps he was counting on the loyalty of the two guards, now being served at the bar? The young nobleman looked paler than usual, with lines around his eyes Karlyn had not seen before. When his cup of wine arrived, the fingers that turned it around on the tabletop without lifting it to his lips trembled slightly.
“You might have been better to come afoot,” Karlyn-Tan said. “You’d attract less attention.” He threw a pointed glance around at the patrons of the barroom, only some of whom were minding their own business. Others seemed to think that a well-dressed and mounted nobleman, even with two guards, was their business.
“I will not be in Gotterang long enough for attention to harm me,” Dal-eDal said, turning to sit sideways in his seat.
That was enough to make Karlyn look up once more from his polishing, as Dal-eDal must have known it would.
“My House and lord, Lok-iKol,” Dal said quietly, his eyes now idly drifting over the room, “has an errand for me outside the city.”
“Lok-iKol wishes you to leave Gotterang?”
Dal-eDal inclined his head once.
Karlyn-Tan relaxed, allowing his shoulders to rest against the wall behind his bench. No one in the House had thought it strange that this younger cousin had been kept on a short leash. Younger cousins who were part of the succession, even if they had no apparent ambition, were always a danger to heirs, and best kept where they could be carefully watched. This was no less true now that Lok-iKol was calling himself Tarkin. And yet Lok-iKol was now sending Dal away?
Karlyn let his eyes drift over to the two men watching from the bar. “Is he so sure of himself, now that he is Tarkin?”
Dal shook his head impatiently. “It’s more than that. He…” Dal looked across the table from under his brows. “I’ve been long a coward, Karlyn-Tan, or so I thought. But yesterday I saw something that makes me understand what fear is. I need help.”
Karlyn raised his eyebrows, his lips parting of their own accord. He quickly lowered his own eyes back to the bits of buckle, the polishing paste and rags on the tabletop. Dal had to be afraid, to say such a thing aloud.
“I appreciate the help you have given me,” he said slowly. “But I remind you that I am no longer a Steward of Tenebro.”
Dal stopped turning his wine cup on the table and took a long draw from it, setting it back on the table with a sour twist to his mouth. Serves him right, Karlyn thought. This isn’t the kind of place you should order wine.
“This is a greater concern than who is Tenebro and who is not. We speak now of the fate of Imrion.” Dal wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “You haven’t asked about my errand.”
Karlyn-Tan waited.
“He sends me to find the Mercenary Brother, Dhulyn Wolfshead. I feel it is imperative that we find her, if only to learn why Lok-iKol wants her. If only to use her ourselves.”
Karlyn-Tan felt himself go perfectly still. And kept perfectly silent.
“How?”
“How else? Against Lok-iKol.”
Ah. Karlyn drummed the tabletop with his fingers. The fate of Imrion, indeed.
“Can we rid ourselves of the two men with you? I have someone I think you should meet.”
Dhulyn looked out through the spy hole and nodded slowly, almost unable to believe what her eyes told her.
“He does not lie,” she said to Tyler Nightsky, the Brother who had called her to the gate. “That is Karlyn-Tan, last seen as Steward of Walls at Tenebro House.” She turned to Tyler. “I will speak with Alkoryn. In the meantime, allow him to enter the outer courtyard.”
Karlyn-Tan had been told to stand at the end of the courtyard nearest the gate. Dhulyn let herself into the yard from the kitchen end and waited, without moving. Except for the missing Tenebro crest, he looked very much the same as the last time she had seen him, eyes narrow, lips unsmiling.
“Dhulyn Wolfshead,” he said, taking half a step toward her before remembering his instructions and standing still.
“I did not think it possible that my ears and eyes both should deceive me,” she said. “And yet here you are.”
“You are not deceived, Wolfshead,” he said. “I am here.”
“And your Walls?”
“Are mine no longer. I am Cast Out.”
For a moment Dhulyn could think of nothing to say that was adequate to what he’d told her. Finally, she nodded. “For whom do you speak?”
“To you, I speak for myself,” Karlyn glanced away before returning his eyes to hers. “I rejoice to see you well, and alive. And I bring you warning that Lok-iKol Tenebroso seeks everywhere for you.” She bowed toward him. That was certainly no news to her, whatever he thought, but his goodwill in warning her had to be acknowledged.
Karlyn took a deeper breath. “To Tek-aKet, Tarkin of Imrion, I speak for Dal-eDal Tenebro, who comes with news, and brings himself and eight others as a token of the force of allies he can add to the Tarkin’s strength.”
“You bring messages here for Tek-aKet Tarkin?”
“I do. Mercenary Brothers helped him escape, and he is either with you, or his whereabouts are known to you.”
Dhulyn kept her face still as stone, giving nothing away. Of course Dal-eDal knew they had been in the Carnelian Dome, helping the Tarkin. Did anyone else know? Were the tunnels secure enough for the Tarkin and his family? Alkoryn certainly believed so, but better careful than cursing, Dhulyn thought.
“Does Dal-eDal hope to become Tenebroso? And will you then be restored to your Walls?”
“We have no such hope or expectation,” Karlyn-Tan said. “There is too much future for us to see what will come.”
Dhulyn narrowed her eyes, but it was clear his words were innocent of any hidden meanings as he continued with his message.
“Our purpose is to remove the usurper Lok-iKol Tenebro from the Carnelian Throne, and restore the Culebro Tarkin, Tek-aKet.” He cleared his throat, giving her a chance to respond, but she only smiled her wolf’s smile. “If we live, there will be time to see what will follow.”
Dhulyn crossed her arms and, with her head to one side, studied the former Steward of Walls. If their House was being watched, no one, not even Karlyn-Tan, could simply enter and not be seen to come out again. Fortunately, Alkoryn had thought of even this contingency when she’d gone to consult with him.
“When the moon has set, bring Dal-eDal to the Fountain of the Rivers. You will be met and taken to the Tarkin.”
“There are two others I believe you will want as well, for the information they may have, Mar-eMar Tenebro, and the Scholar of Valdomar, Gundaron.”
She raised her eyebrows. They were alive, then, and likely to stay that way if Karlyn-Tan had taken them under his wing. Still, she told herself, she had no wish to see either the Scholar or Mar-eMar Tenebro again.
“The Scholar, at least, was intimate with Lok-iKol, and has information that may be of use.”
Dhulyn sighed. Of course he did. And she was a blooded fool not to think of that herself. “Very well, you may bring them.”
Dhulyn found Parno and Alkoryn already seated with Tek-aKet at the table farthest from the low entrance, with Fanryn and Thionan half-sitting on the edge of another table against the left wall. This was another one of the many caves that honeycombed the earth under Mercenary House and even the Great Square itself. Dhulyn had no idea what its intended use had been, perhaps a storeroom for contraband; the uneven ceiling was low enough in places that she had to duck her head, and those taller than she, including Parno and Tek-aKet Tarkin, had found themselves seats as quickly as they could to remove the strain of standing hunched over. The Tarkin had chosen the two shortest of his guard to stand against the rock wall behind him. Dhulyn hoped the sweat on the face of the blond on the left came from too much clothing, and not the enclosure sickness.
Instead of a large council table, such as could be found in the public meeting room in the House above them, here were half a score of small round tables, scattered over a floor leveled with sand and inlaid cobbles, each with chairs or stools to allow three or four to sit, making the place resemble nothing more than the taproom of a small tavern. All it lacked were windows and a serving bar. Ganje, water, bread, and dried fruit had already been laid out on the tables.
Dhulyn was alerted by noises in the passages behind her to the arrival of Cullen of Langeron, a lean, wiry man with steel-gray hair and the feather tattoo covering the left side of his face. The ceilings did not allow for Cullen’s Racha bird, Disha, to ride in her accustomed place on his shoulder, and Dhulyn was intrigued to see that the bird nevertheless accompanied her Partner, walking on the ground almost under his feet in the manner of a playful cat. The Cloud went immediately to Tek-aKet and saluted him with the formal bow of an ambassador.
“Don’t stand on ceremony, Cullen of Langeron,” Tek-aKet said. “At the moment I’m Tarkin of nothing but this room.”
“On the contrary, Tek-aKet Tarkin,” the Cloudman said sharply. “It is precisely because you are Tarkin of more than this room, that ceremony will be observed.” The two men locked gazes, and after a moment Dhulyn saw a loosening of the tension of Tek-aKet’s shoulders, a lessening of the darkness in his eyes. Guard yourself better, she thought, make your thoughts harder to see. The Tarkin of Imrion nodded, just once, as if in answer to her thoughts, and gestured to seats at the nearest tables.
“I have just been telling our host that most of the army is away on the borders to the south and west, keeping the Kondrians honest. I don’t know how many might come to us.”
“I believe we may have time to put that to the test,” Alkoryn said. He signaled to Fanryn Bloodhand.
“The latest news,” Fanryn began, “is that the Anointing and Dedication scheduled for the new moon has been postponed. Lok-iKol has sent for the Mesticha Stone, and tells people he’ll wait for its arrival. What this means, no one knows, but it’s only the last and strangest of the changes the latest days have brought us. As we know,” Fanryn said, tossing her hair back out of her face and accepting the cup of ganje Thionan had brought her, “the first few days found the Houses of Jarifo and Esmolo coming and going in the precincts of the Dome, giving themselves airs about the court and the city itself.”
“It seems there was to be a wedding,” Thionan added, “between Lok-iKol and Riv-oRiv Esmolo.”
“She’s young,” Tek-aKet said. “Too young to marry in any case.”
“Too young to marry, but not too young to be promised in marriage.” Parno drew their attention as he leaned forward, elbows on the table. “It’s a good move,” he added. “Buys the support of an important House without really committing himself to anything.” He shrugged. “A great deal can happen between now and the time the girl can actually marry.”
“Well, the wedding’s no longer spoken of,” Fanryn said. “Now both those Houses have taken down their flags and flowerets, pulled their men off the streets, closed up their enclaves. Like those other Houses who were neither for you nor against you, Lord Tarkin, they now bide their time, waiting to weigh Lok-iKol’s power, waiting to see who they should salute. What’s changed them, though, that we can’t find out.”
Disha the Racha bird suddenly hopped from the floor to the back of an unoccupied chair. As if it were cause and effect, Cullen spoke, his soft voice cool and dry.
“So the Houses are playing their tiles carefully. There’s nothing new in that,” he said.
“But if the Houses have withdrawn their support, it may be we have a chance to regain the Throne if we act quickly. I’ve sent out word through the old network,” Alkoryn added, “letting people know that you’re alive, Lord Tarkin, and that you will return. Soldiers and guards alike are presenting themselves at safe contact points. One who’s come to us quietly with no fanfare and on foot so as to draw no attention is Fen-oNef Penradoso. He says to tell you that he doesn’t forget his promise to your father, nor yet the one he made to you. If you want Lok-iKol dead, say the word.”
Tek-aKet exchanged looks with those around the table, returning Parno’s broad smile with one of his own. Tek-aKet’s skin looked less bleached, Dhulyn thought, and the muscles of his face had regained their youthful firmness. This was what he needed to hear; that there were those who had believed in him, who were willing to support him still.
“He’s a tough old man, Fen-oNef,” he said, still smiling. “And I’ve no doubt that he would try. But it’s too dangerous.”
“Exactly what I told him. And it’s too dangerous for him to house the would-be soldiers who keep turning up. One of the things we must think of, is a place to gather troops.”
“What of the Jaldeans,” Dhulyn said, leaning forward. “And the Marked?”
Fanryn’s eyes flicked at the Cloudman, her question as clear as if she’d spoken it aloud. How much did they know? Dhulyn shrugged. It no longer mattered, she thought. As the Clouds revered the Marked, she was probably safer with them than with anyone besides her own Brothers.
“There’s a mystery there somewhere.” Fanryn shook her head. “At first, there was great rejoicing from the Jaldean Shrines, and people were talking about the dream of the Sleeping God as if they were about to join it.
“But now petitioners are being turned from the shrines, told to come back, and when they do, they’re turned away again with excuses and soft words. There are no services or meditations, and the priests aren’t seen in the streets. Beslyn-Tor has not been seen in over two days-not even by his own people-and some others who were believed touched by the god are also conspicuous by their absence. People are wondering what has happened to the promises the Jaldeans were making before the fall of Tek-aKet Tarkin. The very people who were so quick to support them, are now murmuring against them.”
“Helped by the rumors we and the Scholars are spreading, of course,” Thionan said with a grin.
“And the Marked?” Tek-aKet asked.
Thionan’s voice came low and rough. “Two days ago they started being taken to the Carnelian Dome, and not to the Jaldean Shrines. None have been seen, city or country, since.”
The silence in the room was as thick as inglera fleece.
“We will hope there are some in hiding,” Cullen of Langeron said, as his bird Disha nodded.
Thionan cleared her throat. “There’s something else, though it’s hard to know how significant it is,” she said. “I’m sorry to say, Lord Tarkin, that your counselor, Gan-eGan, was yesterday found hanged in his private chambers. Hanged by his own hand, it appears. It seems a small tragedy in the face of everything else, and in the face of what the Marked have had to endure, but we thought perhaps you would want to know.”
Dhulyn shut her eyes, seeing again the two images of the skinny, overjeweled old man, one with green eyes, the other standing behind, weeping. She blinked. Green eyes again. Like the Mage in her Visions. And the Scholar. Who was on his way even now with information. Perhaps more information than he knew.
Dhulyn glanced at Tek-aKet. He was pale again, his face fixed and resolute. But before she could ask any questions a young woman appeared in the cave’s entrance. Dhulyn recognized her as the same one, Rehnata by name, who had greeted them when they first arrived in Gotterang. Since then, the dark brown hair above her temples and ears had been removed in preparation for the tattooing of her Mercenary badge.
“They are here, my Brothers,” she said to Alkoryn, acknowledging Dhulyn as well with a bob of her head. “Shall we bring them?”
“By all means,” Alkoryn said.
“Watch your head.”
From the sound, the warning had come just a second too late for Karlyn-Tan, Gundaron thought. He himself was too short to worry about bumping his head, but being led blindfolded through passages and tunnels meant bashed elbows and stepped-on toes, no matter how careful your guides. As things were, however, Gun was grateful to have sore elbows and bruised toes to distract him from what was coming. He knew Mar and Karlyn-Tan were right-this was what he had to do. But just at the moment, he was more than half convinced he’d been persuaded against his will.
Finally the blindfolds came off. They’d had them on so long that even the soft light of the lanterns carried by their guides was enough to have all four of them blinking and squinting. Gundaron tried not to hang back as they approached the open doorway of the underground meeting room. Not that he could do much more than drag his feet a bit since there were Mercenary Brothers both in front of and behind him. From what Karlyn-Tan had said, he’d expected Dhulyn Wolfshead herself to lead them to Tek-aKet, but it had been two black-haired Mercenary Brothers with Semlorian accents. The smiles they’d given him when they’d met them at the fountain made the skin on the back of his neck crawl.
Dhulyn Wolfshead would be inside the room, he thought, watching Dal-eDal pass through the entrance. Along with the Brother he hadn’t met, her Partner Parno Lionsmane.
The first Brothers he saw as he followed Mar into the room weren’t the two he was dreading the most, however, but Fanryn Bloodhand and Thionan Hawkmoon, who went so far as to lay her hand on her sword hilt and grin at him. Gun looked away and, seeing Mar’s face, followed her line of sight to where Dhulyn Wolfshead stood to the left of Tek-aKet. Mar stepped toward the Outlander woman with her hands lifted, reaching out, but hesitated, coming to a stop as the Wolfshead gave her the half bow that was the very knife edge of courtesy among the Noble Houses. Such would be the greeting-Gun had seen it many times-between two nobles who had some long-standing grudge, but were forced to be civil in some public gathering. Dhulyn Wolfshead straightened and turned her eyes away, and Gun braced himself… but her stone-gray eyes moved over and past him as if he was not even there.
He immediately looked down, heart thumping. It seemed he had nothing to fear from Dhulyn Wolfshead. It seemed that as far as she was concerned, he didn’t exist. He found himself hugging his arms around his chest, to convince himself he was there, he was.
When he had enough control of himself to listen, he found that he had missed Dal’s first words. The Tarkin was speaking.
“To say that I am surprised to see you does not begin to describe my feelings, Dal-eDal Tenebro.” He put up his hand and Dal stilled. “You are heir to your House, and now to the Carnelian Throne, and yet you come with your oaths of loyalty to me.”
It was not a question, but Dal-eDal answered it.
“My lord-” he cleared his throat and began again. “I am not an ambitious man. I have never wanted more than my own Household. But my cousin Lok-iKol sees a mirror in every man, and his own image grinning back at him. Fate may lead even a distant cousin to become House of his family, whether he wished it or no, but the Tarkinate…” Dal shook his head.
“I was warned to be skeptical of your loyalty,” Tek-aKet said, nodding at where Fanryn Bloodhand and Thionan Hawkmoon stood leaning against a small table to Gundaron’s left. “Perhaps you do not want the Carnelian Throne, but you would have me believe that you choose this moment to act against your House?”
Dal licked his lips. “I do not believe I go against my House, my lord,” he said, in that quietly strained voice that had been all Gun had heard from him for the last day. “I believe my House has Fallen.”
At this everyone, Gun included, edged forward. Fanryn Bloodhand straightened to attention and Thionan Hawkmoon put a restraining hand on her Partner’s arm. Even the Wolfshead and the Lionsmane exchanged glances.
“Who is it, then, who sits on my throne?” Tek-aKet’s voice was hard as the rock overhead.
“I do not know,” Dal said. “Outwardly, it seems to be my cousin.” Dal glanced suddenly at Parno Lionsmane, but Gun couldn’t see that the Brother had moved in any way. “Possibly, in some way, it is. But I do not believe it. Something else occupies… something else is there.” He straightened, and Gun saw for the first time the dark smudges under the man’s eyes. “Indulge me, my lord,” Dal said. “I have waited what seems an age to tell the full story only once, and it is choking me.”
Tek-aKet glanced at the older Mercenary Brother seated next to him. When the man nodded, the Tarkin gestured at Dhulyn Wolfshead, indicating that she should take the seat next to him. That left an empty seat across the table.
“Sit, Dal-eDal Tenebro. Refresh yourself, tell your story.”
Dal nodded, waited until a cup was poured for him, but made no move to pick it up. He took the chair, though, Gun thought, feeling the ache of his own muscles.
“I have spent my whole life waiting, and watching, my lord; so long that perhaps I forgot what it was that I was waiting for.” As Dal folded his hands on the table in front of him, Gun saw them trembling. “Lok had my father killed, and I believed I was waiting for the right moment to avenge him. I wonder if I would ever have found it.” Dal drew in his brows, frowning at his hands on the table.
Mar shifted, stepping forward as if she would move closer to the table. Gun put his hands on her shoulders, and pulled her back a little, until she was standing against his chest. Her skin felt warm, even through two layers of clothing, and she relaxed under his hands, though she kept her eyes on the faces of the four seated at the table.
Dal glanced up at Tek-aKet and waited until the man nodded before he continued. “Perhaps three days after he took the Dome, my lord, my cousin called me to him, saying that he had an errand for me.” Keeping his eyes fixed on Tek-aKet, Dal’s voice did not falter. “For years he has kept me under his hand, and I have not left Gotterang unless as his companion. Yet he has now, suddenly, asked me to do so, in order to find the Mercenary Dhulyn Wolfshead.”
Mar glanced at Gun over her shoulder, her eyebrows raised; Gun pressed his lips together and nodded. A quick look around the room showed much less puzzlement than he would have expected. She’s told them, he thought, by all the Caids, she’s told them.
Dal, too, had noticed the change of atmosphere in the room. “Apparently, you know more of this than I, though I knew that my cousin had shown interest in this Brother before he took the Carnelian Throne.
“He said no more of her at that moment, and I walked with him to the room where your crown, my lord Tarkin, and your treasures, and the jewels that your wife brought with her to her marriage are kept. He said he was looking for a relic of the Sleeping God.”
Tek-aKet nodded. “An old bracelet,” he said, “with green stones. I know of it. The Jaldean Shrine here in Gotterang has been asking for it for months.”
“As you say, my lord. Lok found it, a gold bracelet in the antique manner of the Caids, and he put it on.” Dal picked up the cup of ganje that had been poured for him, looked inside it, and put it down again. He’s not looking anyone in the face, Gun thought. When did that start? Dal had always been the most watchful of men.
“What of it,” the Tarkin said. “My mother wore it often. I’ve worn it myself.”
Gun wouldn’t have thought it possible, but at these words Dal paled even more, the shadows around his mouth stained a faint green.
“Drink something, man; you’re no use to us if you faint,” Dhulyn Wolfshead said in her rough voice. The Cloudman to the Tarkin’s left stood and with his own hand poured out water from the glass jug on the table and handed the mug to Dal-eDal.
“Thank you.” His voice was a thread of air. He sipped at the water and set the mug down next to the untouched ganje. He cleared his throat, but his voice when he continued was still rough. “Lok found the bracelet,” he said, “and slipped it over his hand. As I watched, the bracelet faded, dissolved, and was absorbed into his skin. I looked up, and Lok was watching the spot where the bracelet had been and smiling. And his shadow, on the wall behind him, was not his own, but larger, darker, than it should have been-” Dal sucked in a short, sharp sip of air, “and was the wrong shape, as if it had wings about to open.”
Parno Lionsmane’s cup tilted, but he caught it before it fell.
“The lantern-” Tek-aKet started to say.
“No, my lord,” Dal interrupted. “My own shadow was there, pale and ordinary, as familiar to me as my own hand. Except that my shadow seemed to shrink from his, as if it knew something I did not.” This time, when Dal stopped speaking, no one else moved or spoke, so obvious was it that he had not finished. “There is more, my lord. When I looked again to my cousin, to ask him about what I had seen, his eye was green. Not blue as it has always been, and, his eye patch-” Dal lifted his left hand to his own face, as if to show them where the eye patch should be. “I don’t know, perhaps because of the angle at which we were standing, perhaps because he had touched it somehow-” Dal looked across the table at his Tarkin. “My lord, I could see that both his eyes were green. Both of them.”
Mar shifted abruptly and Gun loosened the suddenly tight grip he’d taken on her shoulders. His breathing came uncomfortably quick, and in his mind he saw again the barricade of shelves and books that kept away the Green Shadow. The Cloudman at the table with the Tarkin made the old sign against evil, thumbtip to tip of index finger, the Mercenaries standing around the room developed suddenly neutral expressions, and Wolfshead and Lionsmane looked at each other, recognition in their faces. But Dal spoke matter-of-factly like a man beyond caring what other people thought.
“Clearly, you believe what you saw,” the Tarkin said finally. “What do you believe it means?”
“It means you must not wait, my lord,” Dal said. Suddenly reaching out his hand to the man across from him, Dal looked the Tarkin directly in the face. “Listen to me. This is no ordinary coup. I have thought that it did not matter to me who sat on the Carnelian Throne, but I tell you, it matters to me what sits there, and that green-eyed thing is not my cousin.” Once again he spoke, not as a frightened man who expects to be held in contempt, but as a man freely owning a fear in the face of which the opinions of others were meaningless. “It has the Marked brought to the Dome, and they leave broken and mad. The Carnelian Guard-” He broke off, frowning. “Elite troops injure themselves with carelessness or in quarrels, except for those who go off duty and disappear. Gan-eGan has killed himself. Children are weeping in corners. Whatever this is, its poison is spreading. You must waste no time. You must act now.”
Gun licked his lips. One pair of eyes had left off looking at Dal-eDal and had fixed on him. One pair of stone-gray eyes that had slid over him, unable to see him when he had entered the room, were focused on him now.
“Let’s ask the Scholar,” Dhulyn Wolfshead said. “I’ll wager my second-best sword he knows what this is, or can guess. He knows more than anyone what the formerly one-eyed Lok-iKol has been up to.”
Gun’s hands formed fists at his sides. It felt like every eye in the room was on him. Even Mar had turned around and was searching his face, her eyebrows drawn down, her lips parted.
“Come, Gundaron of Valdomar.” Gun winced at the tone in Dhulyn Wolfshead’s husky voice. “From the look of you, Dal-eDal’s not the only one here who’s seen this green-eyed thing.”
Everyone was looking at him, Gun saw as he tried to swallow with his suddenly dry mouth. Everyone except Parno Lionsmane. He stood behind the Wolfshead, his hand on her shoulder, his eyes squeezed shut.
“Come forward, boy, and tell us what you know of this.”
Gun found himself responding to the tone of command in the Tarkin’s voice, stepping around Mar and coming closer to the table before he realized he’d made up his mind to do it. Mar touched him on the arm as he passed, her worried eyes searching his face. He looked away from her. He couldn’t tell them everything. He couldn’t tell them that he, himself-they would never understand. Mar would never understand. He would lose all that was growing between them.
When he was facing the Tarkin, he cleared his throat, and released the breath he was holding. “I have seen it, my lord Tarkin. It is real.” Gun glanced around, but except for Mar, there was no friendly face. “I-we’ve been hiding,” he said. “Can you tell me, Lord Dal, have the Marked been going to the Dome only since the…” Gun bit his lip and then continued. “Since the green has come into Lok-iKol’s eyes?”
“I believe the decree changed that morning, just hours before my cousin, or the thing that he has become, sent for me.”
“What can you tell us, Scholar of Valdomar?”
Gun drew in a deep breath and settled his shoulders. He found himself folding his hands in front of him, as if about to recite his lesson. If only this was just another lecture, another examination in his Library. That what he was about to say was only interesting history, and not something that might very well change the lives of everyone in this room, including his own.
“I believe it is this Green Shadow that seeks for and destroys the Marked. That the teachings of the New Believers are nothing more than an excuse, invented to give it freedom to act.”
Gun saw movement out of the corner of his eye and hesitated. The Cloudman was nodding, a satisfied smile on his face.
“Continue,” the Tarkin said.
“I cannot explain how, my lord Tarkin, but I have only recently remembered seeing what Lord Dal describes, the green light, the misshapen shadow, the… the feeling of otherness, in Beslyn-Tor, the Jaldean High Priest. It seems I took no notice of it at the time, but afterward, as I say, I remembered seeing it many times.” Gun waited for the murmurs to die away.
“I think I saw it in Lok-iKol once, but not in the same way,” Gun continued when no one else spoke. “At that time, Lok-iKol did not move or speak, but stood slackly, like a rag doll, as if the Green Shadow only looked through his eyes. In any case, it was the priest who wanted Marked brought to him, not Lok-iKol.”
“The Green Shadow,” Parno Lionsmane said under his breath.
Gun meant to continue, to tell about himself, to tell everything, but his throat closed. He looked down at his clasped hands, trembling, knuckles white. When he looked up again, he met Dhulyn Wolfshead’s eyes. She knows, he thought.
“They say Beslyn-Tor has suffered a stroke, and lies feeble and raving in rooms Lok has given him in the Dome,” Dal said, leaning back in his chair with a thoughtful look.
“Always the Jaldeans,” Tek-aKet said. “Zella warned me they were the real danger, and I didn’t listen.”
“They supported Lok-iKol’s coup,” Dal pointed out.
“But why? Was it this Green Shadow?”
Gun nodded. “It wants the Marked.”
“The Marked.” Tek-aKet let out a forceful breath. “I did not give the New Believers what they wanted.”
“And so they gave their support to someone who would.” Parno Lionsmane focused his attention on Gun over his Partner’s head. “But what did that support entail?”
“The people.” It was Dhulyn Wolfshead’s raw silk voice that answered. “How did the traitors get into the Dome so easily? Almost all of the Carnelian Guard, soldiers whose duty it is to protect the Dome, and more than half of your Personal Guard, Lord Tarkin, have been in the streets for the last moon, helping the City Guard keep order, quelling little riots and mob violence. All started by the Jaldeans.”
The Tarkin was shaking his head. “They wouldn’t have done so much on Lok-iKol’s bare word that he would enact their laws. Lok-iKol must have been doing something for them already.”
Gundaron swallowed. “Lok-iKol was collecting Marked for them, my lord.”
“Explain.”
“Not everyone came voluntarily to the shrines to be blessed by the Sleeping God. Some even left the city, or moved to new quarters, never obeying the edicts about their dress. Lok was seeking these out and holding them for the Jaldeans when he found them.”
“And how was he finding them?”
Something in the Tarkin’s tone, in the glint of his eyes, made Gundaron look away, down at the white knuckles of his clasped hands. He licked his lips. “I found them for him, my lord.”
“How?”
Gun bit his lip, his throat tight as a fist. He risked a glance at Mar. Her face was still as stone, but she said nothing. “Research.” His whisper sounded uncomfortably loud in the silence of the room. Dhulyn Wolfshead looked at him with narrowed eyes; he shifted his own and was startled to find the same searching look in the eyes of the Racha bird.
“What were the Jaldeans doing with the Marked you helped locate?” Tek-aKet’s voice was silkily quiet.
“I don’t know. That is-” Gun kept his eyes fixed on his folded hands. “I didn’t take any part after the people were found. Afterward, when I remembered… now I know that Beslyn-Tor came to give them what he called the Sleeping God’s blessing. But as for why… I think he-I think it, the Green Shadow, is destroying the Marked; it fears them, as if they can harm it somehow.”
“You never tried to find out?” Gun glanced up at Parno Lionsmane, but immediately dropped his gaze. The Mercenary looked like he’d opened a pie only to find snakes writhing inside.
“I didn’t know.” He couldn’t tell them everything, they wouldn’t believe him.
“It may be that the Green Shadow took the memories from him,” Dhulyn Wolfshead said.
“And it was for this that you brought my Partner, my soul, to Gotterang?” The growl in the man’s voice showed it wasn’t just for his coloring that he was called Lionsmane.
“No!” Gun cried out, holding his hands up, pushing away the worst of it. “Dhulyn Wolfshead wasn’t for the Jaldean. Lok-iKol wanted to keep her for himself.”
“And who else?” Dhulyn Wolfshead glanced over his shoulder and suddenly Gun knew exactly who was standing just behind him. He could almost smell the distinctive sweetness of the soap they’d used in Karlyn-Tan’s room.
“And Mar, too, if she proved to be a Finder as he suspected.” He squeezed the words out through the barrier his throat had become.
“As he suspected because you had told him so-”
“Enough, Parno.” The Wolfshead’s voice, though soft, had the force of a cracked whip. All the murmurs in the room died away. “We are all alive, which is more, apparently, than can be said for Lok-iKol,” she smiled her wolf’s smile, “on whom, as his mother wished, has fallen a terrible curse.” She turned to Gun. “What of you, Scholar of Valdomar?”
“I’ll kill him if you like,” Parno Lionsmane said, and there were a few murmurs in the room that showed others agreed.
“He meant no harm,” Dhulyn Wolfshead said, steel showing in her voice. “You forget the Scholarly mind, my soul. It isn’t real to them unless it’s in a book.”
Gundaron looked up at her. There was no horrified disbelief on her face, as there was in Parno’s. He felt a crumbling hollow in his mind where there had been a good solid wall. A wall that he’d built by sticking to his books, his notes. By not asking awkward questions and by telling himself that everything was all right. He had a sudden mental image of the little page Okiron once telling him that Lok made him nervous, and of himself telling the boy that everything was all right. He’d told himself over and over, since leaving Tenebro House, that he was doing all he could to make amends and there was no point in dwelling on the past. But he’d still been hiding something behind that wall. Of course he’d been horrified when he’d finally remembered, finally realized, what Lok-iKol and Beslyn-Tor were doing. But that hadn’t been why he’d wanted to leave. He’d wanted to leave out of fear for himself, not out of horror at what he’d done to others. Out of fear of the Green Shadow, and what it might still do to him. Out of fear of Pasillon. Not out of resolution and defiance, as Mar had done, but out of fear.
Of course the Outlander woman showed no surprise now; she’d known all along, she’d seen him in Lok-iKol’s study, and known what he was.
“We have strayed from our point.” Gun roused himself at the sound of the Tarkin’s voice. “What of the green-eyed Jaldean spirit? What can be done now?”
Gun cleared his throat. No one had offered him anything to drink, and he was afraid to ask. “Lord Dal is right, this is not Lok-iKol. The Shadow does not want what Lok-iKol wanted. If you wait to gather an army, my lords, there may not be an Imrion to save. From what I have seen, the Shadow doesn’t care about the country, only about the Sleeping God and the Marked.” Gun coughed again.
The Racha bird startled them all by suddenly opening and closing its wings.
“These people came together, my lord,” the Cloudman said. “Shall we accept what they told us without verification? You can withdraw to the mountains. An army can’t fight the Clouds,” he said, reminding them all of the old saying.
“Never before,” Gun agreed, “because the Tarkin always counted the cost of it, in time, in soldiers, and in lost revenues. But what if the cost was immaterial to him? What if it’s the Shadow that comes? The Green Shadow cares only to destroy the Marked.”
“What is this Shadow?” Fanryn said. “Is it the Sleeping God, awakening to destroy us?”
The Cloudman’s bark of laughter brought every head up. “Don’t be misled by the lies of fools. We have nothing to fear from the Sleeping God, awake or asleep. This is some enemy.”
“Enough.” The Tarkin’s soft baritone cut across and silenced all other noise. “Dal-eDal, if you have nothing further to add, would you withdraw, and allow me to consult with my advisers?”
“I am entirely in your hands, Tek-aKet,” the Tenebro man said. “But I urge you again, waste no time.”