HE GOES SWIFTLY to the corner of the Library where the books and shelves make a great wall and begins to pull at the volumes, his hands going unerringly to one special section and pulling enough books and scrolls out of the way to make a tunnel in the wall, a tunnel he can enter only on his hands and knees. He encounters no shelves as he goes, just book after book, scroll after scroll, as tightly packed as unripe seeds in a flower head that lift away and disappear as he moves them out of his way. He tunnels for what seems like days, and he begins to fear that he cannot Find his way out again, even though the books and scrolls he removes go on disappearing as he pulls them free of the wall in front of him as the tunnel he crawls through gets smaller and smaller until he is reaching almost at his arm’s length to move the final small scroll aside so that he can see the Carnelian Throne and the man sitting on it with his eye patch not quite covering the steady green luminescence of the left eye.
The wall begins snapping back into place.
Gundaron pushed away Mar’s bowl forcefully enough for the water it held to slop out onto the tabletop, and released the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He’d Found what he was looking for, no doubt there. Give Parno Lionsmane a reason not to kill him. Give them all a reason to trust him, to want him. Gun could almost hear his mother’s voice “For the Caids’ sake, Gundy, make yourself useful.”
It had taken him the better part of the night to think what to do, but he hoped that this would be useful enough.
“Gun?”
More water slopped on the table as Gun jerked upright and spun around. Mar stood with her hand on the back of his chair, dark brown brows drawn down into a vee over her eyes. He blinked. How could he have forgotten she was there?
“What did you Find?”
Gun stopped short of answering her as a fair-haired Mercenary Brother he didn’t know appeared in the doorway behind her.
“The Tarkina wants you,” the Brother said. “Quickly.”
Gun tossed the water on the floor and handed the bowl to Mar, ushering her out of the room in the Brother’s wake.
They found Zelianora Tarkina placing packets of dried food into her travel bags, the nurse Denobea tying young Zak-eZak into his sling, and Bet-oTeb dressed and ready, her long dagger in its sheath at her side. The two Personal Guards the Tarkin had left behind were waiting, arms crossed, just inside the entrance to the sleeping chamber.
The Tarkina glanced up but kept packing. “The House is under attack,” she said. “We’re to follow Parno Lionsmane into the tunnels.”
“We’re not safe enough here?” Even as she asked, Mar went to her own bags and began to restow her bowl and pick up her writing tools.
Zelianora tied the last loose thong on her pack and hefted it, nodding, before answering. “If Tek and Lionsmane succeed,” she said, “we can return to the Dome.” Her hands stilled. “And if they fail, we will need to leave here in any case. I prefer to be prepared.”
Gun took his lower lip between his teeth. “Mar, can you pack for us both? I’ve got to speak to Parno Lionsmane.”
The fair-haired Mercenary Brother shook his head. “He’ll have started-”
Gun didn’t wait to hear more. He ducked under the arm of the man at the doorway and dashed off in the direction of the deeper tunnels. There were only four of these tunnels in this section of the caves, and only one that led in the direction of the Dome. Logically-
Gun ran headlong into the chest of a large, hard Mercenary. Prevented from ducking around him, Gun strained to look over the Brother’s shoulder. Was that a glimmer of light he could see?
“Lionsmane,” he called. “Listen! You need the throne room. He’s… it’s in the throne room.”
The light stopped moving.
“Let him come.”
The Mercenary holding him let go and Gun dashed down the tunnel toward the light.
Telian-Han hesitated at the door, raised his hand to knock, and lowered it again. Though many of the doors in this wing had bolts on the inside (and some even locks that would work from the outside), to Telian’s knowledge the man he still privately thought of as the Tarkin, Tek-aKet Culebro, had never used them-at least not here in the private wing of the Carnelian Dome. A well-run Household doesn’t need locks, Tek-aKet used to say. A closed door is as good as a bolt to an honorable person. Since Lok-iKol had come, however, the bolts at least were almost always used. And some said the locks, too, though Telian pushed that thought away almost as soon as he had it.
What all this meant for him was that if you knocked, the person on the inside had to stop what he was doing, and come to let you in. Or not.
Telian’s hands formed fists at his sides. There had been lots of changes since the night Lok-iKol had come, but it was the more recent ones that were especially worrying. At first, when they’d heard the noise of feet pounding and steel clashing, Tel and some of the other pages in his dormitory had wanted to rush into the passages and find out what was going on. But the Steward of Keys had sent senior pages to keep all the younger ones in their rooms and dormitories. The next morning Keys had called them all into the big kitchen where the chief cook and his assistants, the kitchen help, the household staff-cleaners for the most part-and the pages had been asked to gather. Tel had missed the Keys’ first few words-something about a transfer of power that hadn’t sounded too scary-he’d been too interested in the kitchen to pay attention. He’d been here before, but always on an errand, and the noble staff weren’t encouraged to loiter down here.
“Each will remain in his or her own post,” Keys had said, nothing in his voice showing that he’d drunk three bottles of the Tarkin’s best jeresh the night before and must have had a splitting headache because of it. “You’ll find men with Tenebro badges,” here he’d tapped his chest on the left side, “in the public rooms and at cross corridors in the Dome. Be ready to explain who you are and what your errand-and as I said,” here Keys had looked ’round at all the staff, junior and senior, “this is nothing to worry us; it’s just while they get to know us.”
One of the Tarkina’s lady pages, tall, dark-haired Rab-iRab Culebro was bold enough to interrupt and ask about her mistress, but Keys had told her to stay in the Tarkina’s suite with her fellows and await orders.
“Your families may send for some of you,” Keys had said, though everyone knew that wasn’t likely to happen, at least not until they all saw how things were going to fall. No one wanted to risk offending the new Tarkin by appearing to remove their support along with their family members. Tel, for one, had been hoping no one came for him. Minor son of a Holding, a position in the Carnelian Dome was the best thing that could have happened to him.
He’d been so excited, he saw now, looking back on a morning that was only a week ago, though it felt like a month. All he knew was he was a lot more than a week older. He hadn’t admitted to himself, possibly hadn’t realized, how much he’d been hoping that some miracle would happen, and Tek-aKet Tarkin would come back. After the last few days, a return to minding his father’s almond groves and vineyards under his older sister’s supervision didn’t seem like such a bad thing. Locked doors were not the only changes for the worse in the Dome.
He took a deep breath and knocked, waited, standing with his back straight, elbows in as he’d been taught, straining to hear any command, any footsteps nearing the door, and finally hearing only the bolts being pushed back. He took two more slow breaths before pushing the door lightly aside with his fingers and entering the room.
Lok-iKol was sitting as usual in the armchair by the open window, the papers and documents on the worktable against the far wall untouched and gathering dust. He allowed no attendance, not even from his own people.
“My lord Tarkin,” Tel said, and waited to be acknowledged.
“Speak,” the man by the window said in his heavy voice.
“The Lord Dal-eDal has returned, and brings with him a prisoner.”
Tel gasped with pain as Lok-iKol was suddenly beside him, holding his upper arm in a grip that stopped Tel’s breath.
“Where?” The man’s breath was like rotting fish and Tel did his very best not to turn away.
“City gates, my lord.” Tel spoke through clenched teeth, unable to keep himself from squirming in an instinctive attempt to pull free. The man holding him took no notice whatsoever.
“The throne room,” the man said, dropping Tel’s arm and turning away. “When they come, tell them the throne room.”
“Yes, Lord.” Tel blinked back tears and sucked in air as circulation restored itself to his lower arm and hand. Lok-iKol turned away, no longer paying him the least attention, so Tel just turned and ran from the room.
Maybe he would send a message to his father, after all, and beg to come home.
The part of him that was Lok-iKol squirmed and would have turned aside, preferring not to enter the throne room. But he ignored it. He needed to know for certain whether this woman was a Seer. He needed to know whether she had already Seen the Lens. Then he could deal with her as he’d dealt with all the others.
And then he would only have to wait for the last piece to arrive and he would be whole again, in the first shape he’d known, in the shape that, perhaps, might be the key to freeing him from any shape. Whole, he would be safe, for without the Seer, there could be no Lens. And without the Lens, the Sleeping God would never awaken.
He saw the men who waited in the throne room, but he didn’t speak. They talked too much, these shapers. He sat on the throne.
As they rode along the narrow streets immediately inside the city wall, heading for the wider avenues that surrounded the precincts of the Dome itself, Dhulyn had to stop herself from taking off the hood. It was not the lack of sight that disturbed her, but the way her skin crawled and the hairs stood up on her arms. There was something wrong. She’d expected what Parno called city noise to disorient her, to mask the little telltales of scent and sound she’d been using to keep track of her group, and stay aware of her surroundings.
So where was it, then, the city noise?
These were, more or less, the same streets she’d been through not that long ago, and she wasn’t hearing what she should, nor smelling what she should either.
It was much too quiet for early morning. In this part of Gotterang there should have been-there had been when she’d come through with Parno and Mar-people hawking their wares, the squeaking un-greased wheels of hand- and donkey carts, children running and playing, chanting their games, and the buzz of conversations, the tiptap of hundreds of footsteps, the hum of hundreds of pairs of lungs pushing air in and out. But the noises were few enough that Dhulyn could detect and identify them almost as easily as she did the people who were with her. A woman wearing stale perfume scurried by on the right with what smelled like a basket of radishes, fresh from the ground with the earth still on them. Dhulyn’s stomach growled, and she realized that there was no smell of foods cooking, but only the smell of burning, faint but noticeable. Not so faint was the smell of filth-clearly the night soil had not been picked up in days.
“Turning left in a few paces,” murmured Karlyn, with a light touch on her left leg.
As they turned, the breeze brought the unmistakable odor of a decomposing body. Her companions were singularly silent, though Dhulyn knew they must have noticed the stench. Better not ask, she told herself.
Closer to the Dome, the streets smelled marginally cleaner. but there were even fewer sounds of people. At one point Dhulyn heard rapid hoofbeats in the distance, but they came no nearer.
Bloodbone’s muscles bunched and relaxed in a new way, and Dhulyn sensed that they had started up the incline that was the road to the Carnelian Dome. The Dome itself had originally been a fortress on the edge of the escarpment that overlooked the Talgus River, but as Imrion had grown, and the Tarkins had settled on Gotterang as its capital, they had all added to the original structure. Rather than building outward, however, when each subsequent Tarkin had needed more space, they had built up so that the Carnelian Dome was, in fact, layer upon layer of buildings, from the lowest ancient kitchens, to the highest lookout towers. The outer wall was almost as thick as the city walls, and built in the time of Jorelau Tarkin, that most paranoid of leaders.
Their hoofbeats made an entirely different kind of echo when they reached the open plaza of the Tarkin’s Square. Another touch on her thigh told her they were stopping-but at a point she judged well back from the gates themselves.
“The gates are open,” Dal said. He kept his voice pitched low and soft, so that it would not carry over, but his shock was evident. Dhulyn understood. The outer gates of the Carnelian Dome stood open only when the Carnelian Guard was parading in the square, and her ears told her that other than themselves, the square was empty.
“It’s only the pass door,” Karlyn said. “Whatever may be the explanation for this, we cannot turn back now.”
“In a tale,” Dhulyn said, “those words would be the signal for an attack.”
“That is what comes of reading too much.”
They stopped again at what Dhulyn estimated was well within bow-shot of the gates, and therefore too close for comfort if they really expected to be attacked. She heard the creak of Dal’s saddle as he stood up in his stirrups.
“Give answer,” he called. “Who attends the gates, give answer.”
“I attend,” came a man’s voice out of the air.
“I am Dal-eDal Tenebro, the cousin of Lok-iKol Tarkin. May I pass?”
Dhulyn grinned. Would anyone else find it significant that Dal-eDal was so careful to say which Tarkin he was related to?
“Enter, enter, enter…” said the voice in the air, fading as though the speaker was turning and walking away. Around her were the noises of her companions dismounting, but Dhulyn stayed where she was.
“You’ll have to duck down,” Karlyn said from around her right elbow. “You’ll just fit through the door if Bloodbone walks carefully.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Dhulyn said rapidly reviewing the knots she’d used before deciding none of them would either pull loose or become dangerously tight if she bent enough to get through the door. Such doors, she knew, were specifically designed to prevent the entrance of people on horseback, but Bloodbone was not large, and if Dhulyn could lay practically flat along the mare’s neck…
She pressed her cheek against Bloodbone’s mane, and felt the loop around her right knee tighten painfully. Just as she was about to sit up again, she felt a hand loosening it. “Thank you,” she said, knowing it was Karlyn-Tan.
The quality of the echoes thrown off from hooves and footsteps once they’d passed through the gate told Dhulyn the inner gate was already open, and she could picture the look of disgust that must have decorated Karlyn-Tan’s face at the carelessness which allowed both gates to be open at once.
Dhulyn closed her eyes and concentrated her senses-there was more wrong here than sloppiness with the gates.
“Are there archers in the recesses?” she asked. There should be, she knew. There had been archers at the slitted openings high in the curve of the tunnel walls when she had passed through here with Parno and Alkoryn.
“I see no one,” Karlyn said.
A shifting of air and the feel of sunlight on the skin of her arms and hands told her they were through the inner gate and into the main courtyard of the Dome.
“You there,” Dal called out. “Where are the Stewards? Our horses need attendance, as do we.”
Nothing more than muttering, and what sounded like fingers snapping in time to an unheard tune. The muscles in Dhulyn’s stomach tightened. The last time she’d felt this way had been in Navra, watching the crowd around the Finder’s fire.
“What is happening?” she said, not caring who heard her speak.
Before anyone could answer Dhulyn heard the unmistakable sound of an arrow whistling through the air, and a grunt behind her, a swift click of hooves as a horse shied to one side, a jingle of harness, followed by the unmistakable dull thud of a body hitting the cobbles.
Without conscious thought she squeezed her knees together and Bloodbone obeyed the signal, rearing as Dhulyn thrust out both heels, pulling free of her leg bindings and sliding off Bloodbone’s back to land squarely on her feet as the mare took a step forward. Lifting and uncrossing her arms over her head freed them, and Dhulyn yanked off the hood, ducking just in time to avoid another arrow as it fell bouncing on the stones beyond her. The flagstones underfoot were swept relatively clean, but as she straightened, Dhulyn mimed tossing dirt into the faces of the two nearest strangers, who flinched without thinking. She pulled her boot knives free and used them to deflect yet another arrow.
Not that the arrows appeared to be specifically aimed at anyone, Dhulyn realized as she glanced around, squinting against the light, near blinding after so long in the hood. The second flight of arrows seemed let off from loose strings, so haphazard as to be no real danger. Not like the armed guards running from the doorway beside the gate. They were badly dressed and disorderly, but heavily armed and deadly serious. Though if they hadn’t been coming from what was obviously a wardroom, Dhulyn would have sworn these were soldiers coming spent and dirty from the battlefield.
One even had dried blood on the blade of her sword. And a moment later, Dhulyn’s dagger growing out of her eye.
Dhulyn turned and pulled her own sword from the scabbard lying hidden along Bloodbone’s side under her woolly oversized saddle pad. Why would a professional soldier not clean her weapon, Dhulyn thought, as she automatically brought up her blade to block a blow aimed with great fury but little skill at her head. And since when did the guards of the Carnelian Dome have little skill?
“This way,” Dal-eDal called from behind her, and Dhulyn automatically stepped back, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder. Dal was heading toward a small arched doorway on the far right of the courtyard, not the elaborately carved main entrance Dhulyn had used when she’d come for her audience with the Tarkin.
Three more guards came trotting into the courtyard, but instead of coming directly to the help of their fellows, they hesitated, looking from friend to foe with frowns. One of them stared about as if he wasn’t even sure where he was. Dhulyn moved her sword with more discretion, hitting with the flat of the heavy blade, pushing one youngster away with a boot to the midsection, unwilling to kill people who didn’t seem altogether certain that they wished to kill her.
She was one of the last to reach the doorway Dal stood guarding, and she helped him slam the heavy door into place, stepping aside as Karlyn and Cullen thrust down the bar. A quick look around confirmed only minor injuries, barring the unlucky Linn, who’d been hit by the first arrow-the only one which had come with any force. They had left his body outside with the horses.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Karlyn said. “Where are the Stewards? Why were the gate guards not better organized?”
“And cleaner. And aware enough to actually do some damage with their swords,” said Dhulyn.
“What do you mean, Wolfshead?” Dal-eDal said.
“Did you not see it?” Cullen said. “They moved as if they knew what to do, but had forgotten how.” He looked between Karlyn and Dhulyn.
“Or as if they’d forgotten why,” Dhulyn said. “There was no coordination, as if they’d never fought together before. As if they were each of them alone.”
“We were lucky,” Karlyn said. “You can be killed just as dead by someone who doesn’t know why he’s shooting at you.”
“This is a kind of madness,” Dhulyn said. “We saw this in Navra, Parno and I. Did you see their eyes? It is some effect of the Green Shadow.”
“We waste time with questions we cannot answer,” Dal said pushing away from the wall. “Come.”
Three identical dressed-stone passages led from the entrance hallway, each as wide as her outstretched arms, each carpeted with runners of woven matting to deaden the sound of servants’ feet. Dal had chosen the one on the right, and they had advanced as far as the first cross corridor when they heard footsteps running. Dhulyn and Cullen had been walking with their swords at the ready, and now Karlyn and Joss lifted theirs, bracing themselves. Dal held up his hand and after a few moments it became clear that the running feet came no nearer, but were fading into the distance.
“They go to the throne room,” Dal said.
“If our people are the target of those running guards, they will need our help.”
“Throne room it is.”
They lit the cressets when the third lamp they came to was out of oil and covered in dust, as was the smoothed stone floor under their feet. Those who carried no lights held to the belts of those who did. They’d left the natural caves under Mercenary House behind them, and were now in the secret tunnels that generations of Mercenaries had discovered, used, and expanded upon.
And even though they were helping him at the moment, Tek-aKet Tarkin didn’t like it. He didn’t like the darkness, the closed-in spaces-hadn’t liked it the first time through, but then he’d had Zella with him and the children and that had made a difference.
He didn’t at all like that the tunnels existed, and he especially didn’t like that the Mercenaries knew so much about them.
The passage they followed now was narrow enough that in places they had to turn sideways, and Tek found himself thinking how lucky he was that he took after his slim mother, and not after the hulking bear of a man his father had been. As it was, there were one or two places where even walking sideways made for a tight fit. Parno Lionsmane, with the maps Tek didn’t like to think about firmly in his mind, led the way. After a long, unbroken stretch of bricked tunnel, they came to a crossroads and the Mercenary Brother hesitated.
“Tell me again, Scholar, which way we should go.”
Unable to turn completely, Tek looked over his shoulder at where the Scholar stood between Jessen and Tonal.
“He’s in the throne room, Lionsmane. I’m sure of it.”
Because of the confinement of the walls, Tek was the only one of the group who could see the man’s face-and Tek was fairly certain even Parno Lionsmane didn’t realize he could be seen. Tek saw distrust flit across the Mercenary’s features, strangely bronzed by the light from the cresset he held. The distrust was followed by frustration as Parno Lionsmane shut his eyes tight. And finally the man shrugged.
“Throne room it is,” he told the pale-faced Scholar. “If we live through this, you’re going to tell me how you know.”
Using his dagger, he scratched a pattern on the tunnel wall at eye height and added an arrow.
The tunnel grew gradually wider, and narrow slitted openings began appearing high in the stone walls, letting in some outside light. There was something familiar about the pattern of the light, and it dawned on Tek that this was the outer wall of the Soniana Tower, so called after a long-dead Tarkina, and the present-day location of the Carnelian Throne. He had seen these narrow slits in the walls from the outside, and thought them decorations.
There was light enough for them to see the end of the passage before they walked into it. Parno Lionsmane signaled, holding up his left hand with the first two fingers extended. Tek passed the signal back to his guards. The Lionsmane stuck the cresset into a bracket to the left of the wall in front of him and ran his fingertips over the bricks, feeling for the one glazed smooth. Tek saw him take a deep, quiet breath and let it out slowly, before he ran his hands over the bricks again.
“Should I hold the light?” Tek said.
Lionsmane shook his head. “The maps say the brick won’t show, no matter where we hold the light, that only-here it is.” Tek put out his hand and the Lionsmane guided it until Tek could feel the smooth glazing for himself. It was one of the smaller tying-in bricks, he thought smiling, placed sideways to the others both to create a pattern and to strengthen the double-layered wall. Unless you knew what to look for, the smooth surface was too small to draw attention to itself.
The Mercenary braced his fingers and pushed the smooth brick with his thumbs. “Lord Tarkin, your hands under mine, please.” Even straining as they all were, Tek heard nothing, and it wasn’t until they released the catch that Tek felt the wall give, shuddering slightly under their hands. According to the instructions that had been handwritten on the map, this section of wall was cantilevered, and they should be able to swing it open by pushing on the left-hand side.
Lionsmane drew his sword, and motioned Jessen and Tonal forward, showing them with the point of his blade where he wanted their hands. “I’ll go through first and to the left; the Tarkin behind me and to the right. Guards, you follow up the middle. Scholar, stay out of the way of the blades.” When everyone was in position, the Mercenary nodded and the two guards pushed against the wall to the left of the trigger brick. As promised, the wall opened, so quietly that without the change in light Tek wouldn’t have been sure that it had happened.
“Who’s been keeping this oiled?” he whispered as he followed the Mercenary through the narrow space into the dressing room and stepped to the right. Lionsmane threw him a glance that made Tek’s ears burn. Of course. The Brotherhood maintains the tunnels.
When Tek was growing up, this room had been filled with his father’s robes of state, the Tarkin’s coronet and the spear and sword, symbols of the Tarkin’s office. Tek preferred less ceremony, and had always used the room as a private salon, where he could retreat to rest and refresh himself without technically leaving the throne room, or to send petitioners to wait for a more private audience. A thick rug covered the stone floor, with two comfortable chairs placed near a table covered with an embroidered cloth, tall enough to serve for either writing or dining.
As Tek stepped to the right out of the opening, he glanced down at this table. It held the cut-glass inkwell that Zella’s sister Alliandra had sent him from Berdana’s new glassworks. The ink had dried, and inkwell, pens, and embroidered cloth were all covered with a fine layer of dust. Tek tightened his grip on his sword and felt a chill trickle up his spine. His whole life he’d lived in the Carnelian Dome, and he’d never before seen dust on the furniture.
Lionsmane waited until everyone had come out of the secret passage before he swung the wall shut behind them. The paneling was decorated with an inlaid pattern, and with a tap of his forefinger, he drew their attention to the piece of inlay that marked the door’s trigger from this side. When Tek and his two guards had nodded, the Mercenary turned to look at the room.
“Does that door open directly into the throne room,” he asked, his voice a quiet growl, “or is there another, connecting room?”
“I’m surprised you don’t know,” Tek said, smiling to take the sting out of his words. Well, he thought, first you kill the wolf, then you worry about the holes in the fences. He would deal with the extent of the Mercenaries’ knowledge when they lived through this. “Not a room, but a connecting passage,” he continued. “Go immediately right. The door on the left wall at the other end is the entrance to the throne room proper. The entrance will bring us out to the right of the Throne itself. The door opens toward us and will lay flat against the far wall.”
Parno Lionsmane nodded, his eyes still on the door.
“Your best guess as to the number of guards in the room, Lord Tarkin.”
“There are always two standing at the throne itself. This is not the normal time for audiences…” Tek turned to look at the Scholar, looking all the paler for a streak of dirt on his face, standing close to the hidden opening, as if he would like to go back through.
“He’s there,” the boy said. “Or the Green Shadow is.”
Tek nodded. “Then there may be more guards. We should be able to hear voices through the second door.”
“Very well,” Parno said. “Keep the same formation, but come out striking.”