ON THE COUNT of three, Parno dove out through the door held open for him, tossing throwing stars to the right and left and making an automatic count of the men in the room as he rolled up onto his feet. Five against each side wall, two flanking the formal entrance. None close to the throne. Twelve. Not so bad, if he didn’t have Tek-aKet to worry about. But with luck there should be Brothers only minutes behind him in the tunnels, and Dhulyn only steps away. Between them he and his Partner could handle twelve easily, even while keeping the Tarkin and his guards alive. Tek-aKet had already followed him into the throne room and was engaging one of the guards standing against the right wall, with Tonal and Jessen running up to help.
Three guards in Tenebro colors approached him warily as Parno straightened to his feet and lifted his sword, already deciding which he would gut first. Just as he shifted his weight to make the first move, he was grabbed in a bear hug from behind, clamping his arms to his sides.
Idiot! he thought, cursing both himself and his assailant. He should have been aware of his own back, not watching for Tek’s. As for the fellow who’d grabbed him, he must have been unarmed-otherwise why waste time with wrestling moves? Even as he was thinking this, Parno squatted, bracing his legs and bending forward to tip the man off-balance. The guard was not unskilled, however, and he countered Parno’s shift of weight by thrusting his own leg forward between Parno’s braced legs. The man was barrel-chested, the strength in his arms astonishing, and Parno felt his lungs close down, refusing his next breath. But he had some experience of his own, and this was no simple wrestling match, skill against skill alone, undertaken for money or glory, and over when one man was pinned to the ground. Years of Schooling allowed Parno to ignore the burning in his lungs, the pounding in his blood, and focus on distribution of weight, on leverage, angles, and cutting edges. Still squatting, he turned his dagger a few degrees of arc, stabbed back and upward, felt the hot gush of blood as he severed the artery in the man’s thigh, took a deep welcome breath of air and shrugged his way out of the man’s suddenly limp grasp.
As he straightened, Parno lifted both his blades, swinging his sword through the arm of the Tenebro guard who was closing in on Tonal. Of the three who had been approaching him, only two were left and Parno leaped to engage them, forcing them back toward the throne itself. Lok was standing, a sword in his hand, looking out at the men fighting like an owl sitting on a perch, turning this way and that, watching for prey.
The part of him that was Lok-iKol recognized the golden-haired man with the Mercenary badge as soon as he stood up out of his roll. The surge of adrenaline that passed through the body was unpleasant, burning and leaving a metallic taste in the mouth. There was some fear, but also something he had come to recognize as hope. Lok-iKol thought there was something this man could do for him, and there was something… the body’s heart rate increased. Where this golden-haired man was, he understood, the Seer would not be far away. He stepped forward and around two men fighting, lifting his hand to TOUCH the man, when another body stepped into his way. This dark-haired, bearded man was no stranger to Lok-iKol, though it took a moment to recognize him, bearded and disheveled as he was. Another surge of emotion, this time colder, bitter. Their swords met with a clash and he fell back, making the dark, bearded man follow. The golden man called out, “No, Tek,” and began cutting through the wall of men preventing him from coming to the dark one’s aid.
The dark man was Tek-aKet. The golden man would fight to save the dark man. Interesting. He could not TOUCH the golden man from here. But he could TOUCH the dark one.
“This way.”
Mentally checking and approving the direction against the map she’d seen days before in Alkoryn’s workroom, Dhulyn ran down the corridor after Dal-eDal. This was the right direction for the throne room, even though they’d missed the formal public approaches that would have taken them directly there. She quickened her pace until she was just behind the Tenebro lord. If he was leading them into a trap, she was willing to let him spring it. As they came up on a second cross corridor, they slowed. This passage was not as wide as the one they were using, but its carpet was good wool, not the woven matting they were walking on. Here they might run into someone with authority.
“Hold your sword down and just walk straight across at a normal speed,” Dhulyn told him. “From a distance we’ll pass for Dome Guards. It’s the stealth and the running that attracts attention.”
They slowed to a walk, but just as they reached the other corridor, a slim, dark-haired young woman turned briskly into their passageway. She yelped, took a quick step back, turned, and ran off. Training made Dhulyn pull out a throwing dagger before she thought again, and resheathed it. Killing the girl would accomplish nothing.
“So much for stealth,” Dal said. “Let’s hope she doesn’t bring the guards.”
“You mean more guards?” Dhulyn said.
They were no more than ten or twelve paces past the intersection when a small group of six guards burst into the passage behind them. They came, Dhulyn noticed, not from the arm of the corridor down which the dark-haired girl had fled, but from the opposite direction.
“Sun and Moon take them,” Dhulyn cursed. They couldn’t hope to outrun soldiers on their own ground, and while six were not too many to deal with, it would cost them time they might not have.
“Let me try something,” Dal said. He took a step toward the approaching Guards with his hands up, palms toward them.
“We come to kill Lok-iKol,” he called out, “and restore Tek-aKet to the Carnelian Throne. We’d just as soon not kill you, so are you with us or against us?”
Dhulyn grinned, seeing that the man in front, while unshaven, was otherwise tidy in the solid dark red uniform of the Tarkin’s Personal Guard, as were three others. The remaining two wore the multicolored sleeves of the Carnelian Guards. Dal-eDal had good eyesight.
The lead guard rubbed his face with his free hand. “You’ve got Tek-aKet? He’s alive?”
“He should be ahead of us,” Dhulyn said. “With my Partner.”
“You swear it’s so?”
“I’m Dhulyn Wolfshead the Scholar, I was Schooled by Dorian the Black. I fight with Parno Lionsmane the Chanter. I swear by my Partner, may we both die in battle.” Dhulyn touched her forehead with the back of the hand that held her sword.
The man reversed his own weapon and held it out to Dhulyn, hilt first. “I’m Dernan. We’re with you. Lead on.”
“You won’t mind keeping your weapon, and taking the point position? It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Dhulyn said, with a smile. “It’s that I trust no one.”
With their reinforcements surrounded, they crossed three more corridors on the way to the throne room, but the only other people they saw were two young pages. Unlike the dark-haired young woman, these two boys did not run away, but stood looking at them as they approached. They clung to each other, though Dhulyn was sure they weren’t aware of it.
“Telian-Han,” Dernan called out. “Go for Talya. Tell her to come help us kill the Tenebroso usurper.”
Both boys broke into wide smiles and ran off down the corridor behind them.
The waiting area outside the wide oak doors of the throne room was just as dusty and neglected as the corridors had been. But somehow it made Dhulyn’s skin tingle to see the tastefully organized chairs with their side tables carrying dead greenery and guttered candles.
“Take care, my lords,” Dernan said, as Dhulyn, shoving her sense of unease to one side, ran across to the closed doors. “If you stay too long with the Tenebroso, or too near him, some illness takes you.”
“I don’t want to stay long in One-eye’s company,” Dhulyn said. “I want to kill him.” She seized the gilded pommels in the center of the ornamental doors and threw them open.
Even as the others spread out, Cullen behind her, Dal to her right, Karlyn-Tan to her left, Dhulyn assessed the room, mentally ticking off friend from foe, looking for the one she wanted most to see. She found Parno just as he shrugged a guard off his back and cut off another’s hand with a casual stroke of his sword before turning to engage two others. A guard she recognized as one from Mercenary House, who had been facing two opponents until one suddenly found herself hand-less, dispatched the man left to him with a broad cut to his head. Dhulyn was more than halfway across the room herself when she heard Parno cry out “Tek, no!” and increased her speed.
Parno’s cry had a strange impact on the people in the room. Fighting all over the room faltered as several of the Carnelian Guards raised their weapons and stepped back from their opponents, looking around them as if unsure what to do. One even nudged a fellow guard who was still fighting out of the path of his adversary and called something Dhulyn couldn’t hear into the man’s ear.
Dhulyn ran past them and skidded to a halt.
Tek-aKet Tarkin and Lok-iKol Tenebroso were circling each other in front of the Carnelian Throne. Lok looked as though he had been wearing the same clothes for some days, and his hair hung stringy and unwashed. He still wore his eye patch, but a green glow shone from behind it, matching the color that shone from his good eye.
Dhulyn caught Parno’s attention across the room and flashed him a grin as she circled around to the left, hefting her dagger. Now if only the Tarkin could maneuver the green-eyed dung eater around so that she could plant a blade in him. Her experienced eye was just telling her that Lok was holding his blade a shade too low, when Tek-aKet, remembering what they had taught him, swept the other man’s blade aside and planted his own squarely in the center of the taller man’s body.
For a moment they stood there frozen, Lok’s arm falling limp by his side, his sword dropping to the floor with a clang of metal on stone, his green eye hooded. He coughed and a dribble of blood ran out of the corner of his mouth. Then Lok moved, reaching out for Tek-aKet, pushing himself up the blade until he clutched at Tek’s clothing, staring the Tarkin in the face as if he would say something important. Per-force, Tek let go of his sword, grabbing Lok’s wrists to prevent being pulled off his feet. Dhulyn saw the green die out of Lok’s eyes, saw the lips form the words, “Tek, Cousin” as Lok-iKol’s knees sagged, and he slid slowly to the floor, taking the blade with him, hands still clamped to Tek’s arm. Lok’s mouth still worked, but the lips formed no words. Dhulyn ran forward to catch the Tarkin’s arm before he joined his cousin on the floor.
Tek-aKet screamed, yanked his arm loose and fell, cracking his head against the foot of the Carnelian Throne.
He cried out, letting the new body scream for him. The light. The searing light. She Sees. She was not to touch him, with her all-seeing eye. He withdrew, diving deeper, until the darkness covered him.
She Sees.
“How can you be humming?”
Dhulyn lifted her fingers from the charred window frame. “What?” “You’re humming that children’s tune, the one from the game you’re so interested in.”
“It’s going through my head, I can’t get it out.”
“Come, the floors are unsafe here. We must go.”
Dhulyn followed Parno out of the charred ruin that had once been Alkoryn’s map room. It had taken them some time to get away from the rejoicing at the Carnelian Dome, but as soon as they could find enough horses, they’d gathered the Mercenaries who had come up through the tunnels and returned to Mercenary House through streets filling with people as news of Tek-aKet’s restoration spread through Gotterang. They’d found the gates battered but still closed, no attackers outside, and nothing living inside.
It didn’t need any great experience to see what had happened. Unable to breach the gate, the attackers had resorted to fire arrows and scaling ladders. From the body count, seventeen had made it inside the House. They’d been laid to one side in the courtyard, as far as possible from the four bodies of the Brothers who’d been found. Parno had found Thionan’s body where he expected, under the plum tree. Fanryn was lying over her, sword bloody.
“Another one this way,” Tyler Nightsky stuck his head in the door.
“We’ll help,” Parno said, turning away from the stairs and following his Brother to the rear of the House. He stopped Tyler with a hand on the arm. “Dhulyn,” he said, motioning her forward. “It’s Alkoryn.”
From the look of the bodies, Alkoryn Pantherclaw had killed one man as he came through the second-story window, and had been backed into a corner by a second man in a Tenebro uniform. This second man was spitted on Alkoryn’s sword, the pool of tacky blood beneath him showing the wound to be immediately mortal.
“Does he live?”
Dhulyn pulled the Tenebro man’s body away and squatted next to Alkoryn. In death, his hand had fallen away from where the hilt of a dagger stuck out, just below where his navel would be, if she could see it. He’d held it in place, keeping the blood in, until he’d been able to dispatch his opponent.
“In Battle or in Death,” Dhulyn saluted him, touching her fingertips to her forehead.
“Zella.”
Zelianora looked up from where she sat in the window seat of her bedroom, the shutters angled to throw the morning sunlight on the book in her hands, and keep it from the bed where Tek was resting. At the sound of her name, she put the book aside and stepped over to the bed.
“How are you feeling?” she said, sitting down on the edge of the thick mattress, and drawing her hand down the side of Tek’s face, letting her fingertips linger on his warm skin. She had caused him to be shaved as he slept, and though he was thinner, and there were new lines on his face, he looked more like the man who had met with and disbelieved the Mercenary Dhulyn Wolfshead-was it only a half moon ago? It felt like three moons at least.
Tek had been unconscious for almost a day after the fight to restore him to the throne, and of course there were now no Healers to be found in all of Gotterang. A surgeon had come from the Mercenary House, a “Knife” as they called him, but the Brother had found nothing physically wrong with Tek beyond the lump on his head.
Zella took the hand that lay on the outside of the thick feather bedcover. “Here I thought that, once we were back in the Dome, all our troubles would be over. I would rather have you well, than all the thrones in the world.”
Tek squeezed her hand and she thought she saw him smile.
“It is only a headache, Zella,” he said. “The Mercenary Knife said, from the knock on my head. It will pass.”
Zella nodded, smiling. “Dal-eDal is suggesting that you show yourself to your men, and to some of the other Houses, now that you are awake. They need to know that you are well, and Tarkin again.”
“I’m so tired.” And indeed, his voice was lower than she had ever heard it, even the time that he’d had the coughing sickness and had lost his voice for three days. There had been no Healer then, either, now that she thought about it.
“I thought perhaps a short audience,” she said now. “It would have to be in the throne room itself, I’m afraid, but we could get you seated before inviting your nobles in… And we could be careful of the light, so long as they could clearly see you.”
“No Mercenaries,” he said. “Not Dal-eDal.”
Zella licked her lips, hesitating. Dal had been a great help to her while Tek was unconscious, and she well understood that without the help of the Mercenaries, neither she nor Tek-nor their children-would be alive to have this discussion.
He seemed to take in what she left unspoken.
“It’s the appearance,” he said. “I-we. We mustn’t look as though we were relying on paid troops, no matter how respected the Brotherhood is. And even if Dal has not yet been confirmed as Tenebroso, his attendance might send the wrong message.”
Zella nodded, relief making her smile come naturally. Tek was talking and thinking like his old self. “I see, that’s well thought out,” she said.
“Get Gan to arrange it.”
Zella felt her face go stiff. “Gan-eGan is dead, my heart. Don’t you remember?”
The man’s mind told him how to speak to her, what to say. He wanted to send her away, but that would cause remark. Remark he could not afford now, not while this pain throbbed its way through the head, pulling at his attention. He had considered taking another shape, an uninjured one, but Tek-aKet was Tarkin, his was the most useful shape. No other so powerful, so safe. Once the pain was gone, once the body was well, then the Seer. Not now, not yet.
Dhulyn sucked in her stomach as the point of Parno’s blade passed within a hair’s breadth of the skin on her belly.
“Trying to tickle me?” she said, aiming a blow at his left shoulder which he parried, making her duck under a cut to her head.
Parno grinned. “And why, exactly, shouldn’t I tickle you?”
“Because you know what tickling leads to.” She saw her opening, slapped his sword aside with the palm of her hand against the flat of the blade, and stepped into him, taking his wrist in her left hand and throwing her sword arm around his neck. She kissed him, light touches on cheeks, chin, and lips, as he laughed. “And we have company.” She made to step back, but his arms had gone around her, so she turned in their circle and smiled her wolf’s smile at the two men approaching from under the arches of the arcade along the north side of the courtyard.
Parno whistled softly next to her ear as he let his arms fall away, releasing her. She gave Dal-eDal and Karlyn-Tan a short nod before turning to the stone bench where they’d left their other weapons. She tossed Parno his shirt and slipped her vest on over her breastband.
“I see we’re not the only ones left uninvited to Tek-aKet’s audience,” Parno said, as he wiped the sweat off his face and arms with his shirt.
Dal-eDal shrugged, tilting his head to one side. “I could see how my presence might be awkward, but I was surprised when I heard that you were also excluded.”
Parno grinned. “Politically, it’s an astute move. Now isn’t the time to remind the Houses that the Tarkinate was restored by a handful of Mercenary Brothers.”
“You were always more politically aware than I,” Dal-eDal said, with a short bow. “And that is why I have come to you. I felt you should be told. The Tarkin has sent word that he will confirm me as Tenebroso four days from now.”
“You don’t need my permission.”
Dal shook his head, lips pressed tight. “Nor do I ask for it. But I find that I would like your… your approval.”
“You have it.” Parno’s voice was low and cool.
“The reason for your Casting Out has been removed, and I would like to offer you the shelter of the House once more. So that you are Tenebro again.”
Dhulyn’s heart thundered in her ears as Parno remained silent a long moment. Would he give the same answer here, in front of others, that he had given her?
“Don’t take offense at what I’m about to say, Dal,” Parno finally said. “But I want you to remember that I didn’t leave the House. Do you understand? It was taken from me. I was Cast out.” Karlyn-Tan’s head came up, and he looked sharply at Parno. “I have another House now, one that I can never lose. And I have a Partner. Not even death will release me from that bond.” He looked down at Dhulyn and touched her cheek with his fingertips. “In Battle,” he said.
“And in Death,” she answered, forcing her voice through the barrier in her throat.
“I understand.” Dal-eDal swallowed. “But I will consider you my cousin. A Tenebro.” He looked at Dhulyn. “Both of you. The task of being Tenebroso will be difficult enough without you.”
“Want my advice?”
“Always.”
“Just ask yourself, what would Lok do? And do the opposite.”
Dal-eDal joined the laugh, but Dhulyn thought his eyes were not smiling.
Dhulyn was quiet as Parno followed her to the baths in the Tarkina’s wing. She had neither spoken nor answered any greeting since they’d left the courtyard. The corridor to the baths was deserted, and as she reached for the door latch, Parno put his hand on top of hers.
“All’s well, my soul?” Was it possible that the woman was still worrying about Dal-eDal and the lure of House Tenebro? Would this uncertainty haunt her forever?
His heart froze as she looked up the short distance between them, frowning, her blood-red brows drawn down in a sharp vee.
“I don’t like Tek-aKet’s behavior,” she said. “I don’t like our being excluded.”
Parno let out his breath slowly. After all this time, he still expected her to react like a civilized woman-as his mother or sisters might have done, wanting to talk it over, reassuring themselves again and again. Was he ever going to know her well enough to know what she was thinking? Did he want to?
“Tek’s position is logical, politically speaking.”
“There is no such thing as logic, politically speaking.”
“Ah, so young to be so cynical.”
She shook her head, lips pursed. “There’s something off. Something wrong.”
Parno pushed the door open and let Dhulyn precede him into the baths before he answered. “Let me see if I understand. We’ve killed Lok-iKol, restored the rightful Tarkin to the Carnelian Throne, we’re valued guests of the Tarkinate…” He imitated Dhulyn, shaking his head, pursing his lips. “No, I can’t say that I see a problem.”
Parno doubled over, gasping, as Dhulyn poked him in the solar plexis with stiffened fingers, and stepped around him to shut the door against the cooler air of the corridor. “You’ve forgotten the Green Shadow.”
“Well, I was trying to, yes.” Parno dragged in a ragged breath, fully aware that he didn’t sound as lighthearted as he was pretending to be. “Unlike some overeducated Outlanders of my acquaintance, I don’t like to dwell excessively on the negative. As I said before, evil defeated, Tarkin restored, Mercenaries luxuriating in well-appointed baths of Carnelian Dome-no, I see no difficulties here.”
Dhulyn sat down on the cedar wood bench just inside the door and pulled up her right foot, but made no other attempt to remove her boot. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “But, somehow, I’m not so sure about evil’s being defeated.” After a moment she looked up, her eyes still focused inward. “Zelianora tells me that other than the bump on his head, Tek-aKet has no injuries.”
“And so?”
Dhulyn sighed, shutting her eyes. “Why are you being so stubborn? If his arm was not broken, why did the man scream when I touched him?”
“What are you saying?”
“Has anyone noted the color of his eyes?”
From his vantage point three steps down from the Carnelian Throne, Telian-Han watched the select group of Houses, which included all the High Nobles and quite a few of the Lower, mill about the throne room, noting who spoke to whom, and which House courteously ignored which. His post today, as on many an audience day, was Tarkin’s Runner. He was here to fetch anything that the Tarkin might want from elsewhere in the Dome, or to run with any message. It was always his favorite post, to stand almost on a level with the Tarkin himself, with strict orders to listen to any discussion Tek-aKet might have with any of his guests-the Tarkin would sometimes quiz him on the talks he’d overheard, using it as part of Tel’s training. Tel once again thanked the Caids that he hadn’t, after all, sent to his father asking to come home.
He knew there were some among the staff and Carnelian Guard who hadn’t thought that well of Tek-aKet Tarkin, who’d maybe been a bit pleased when he was gone. But there were few-very few-who had found they actually preferred Lok-iKol Tenebro. For the last three days the halls and corridors had been filled with smiling faces, Rab-iRab, the Tarkina’s lady page, was practically dancing in her work, and altogether everything, Tel thought with satisfaction, was once again as it should be.
Today he was so happy that he wasn’t really listening very hard to the conversations behind him. After the first few they were pretty much the same. The first House into the room had been Fen-oNef Penrado, no surprise there. His support for Tek-aKet Tarkin had been unwavering. The second was unexpected. It was Jor-iRoj Esmolo’s daughter whom rumor had promised to Lok-iKol. Either the rumor had been false, or the Esmoloso was anxious that Tek-aKet believe it so. After that bit of excitement, the conversations had been boringly repetitious. If everyone was so glad to see Tek-aKet in what they all referred to as his “rightful place,” how had it been so easy for Lok-iKol Tenebro to sit in it?
Tel stood straighter to attention and pricked up his ears. Old Fen-oNef was approaching the throne again, and since he’d already paid his respects, this meant that he had some other business with the Tarkin, business that might require the Tarkin’s Runner.
“My lord Tarkin,” the old man was saying. “I see there are no Jaldeans present this afternoon.”
A little surprised, Tel glanced around the room. No, there weren’t any of the recognizable dark brown robes. How had he missed that?
“They are saying, my lord, that the Jaldean Shrines are shut, and petitioners are being turned away.”
“Is this so?” The Tarkin sounded tired. Tel hoped the audience would be over soon.
“My men tell me that one of the shrines has been broken open by discontented believers, and found empty, not a priest or acolyte in sight.”
Tel carefully kept his face from showing his surprise. He knew that Lok-iKol had stopped supporting the New Believers as soon as his particular friend the priest Beslyn-Tor had become ill, but he hadn’t been aware just how far the fortunes of the Jaldeans had fallen.
“My lord.” Old Fen-oNef was still speaking. “If you would take the frank advice of an old ally, let me remind you what your father would have done in these circumstances.” Fen-oNef waited for the Tarkin’s nod before proceeding. Old family friend he might be, fool he was not. “Once or twice it seemed that the Houses had lost confidence in Nyl-aLyn Tarkin.” Here the old man smiled, brushing back his long mustaches with the back of his hand, but Tel managed to keep his face straight. He knew that with his “once or twice” Fen-oNef referred to the near-rebellions that Tek-aKet’s fierce father had suppressed. “At those times, you may remember,” the old man continued, “your father held a Ceremony of Dedication, where each House reaffirmed its loyalty and support. Why not do the same? If nothing else, it is a marvelous excuse for a banquet.”
At this Tel did smile, almost squirming at his post in excitement. He’d been too young to be a page when Tek-aKet became Tarkin, but a Dedication was almost as good as an Anointing.
“An excellent suggestion, Fen,” Tek-aKet said, his hand straying up to his left cheek. Tel frowned. He’d seen that gesture once or twice already, and if the Tarkin’s head still pained him, this audience should be cut short.
“It will take some organization, I know,” Fen-oNef said. “But I’m sure Gan-eGan has left able assistants, and, if I may, I would advise this as soon as possible.”
The Tarkin tapped his mouth with the first two fingers of his right hand as he considered this. “I agree,” he said finally. “Preparations can begin immediately, but I would suggest the ceremony itself wait for the arrival of the Mesticha Stone. That should serve to quell any fears felt by the Jaldeans and appease their faction.”
The Tarkin and the Penradoso went on speaking, but their words were drowned by the buzzing in Tel’s ears. The Mesticha Stone? Tel had almost forgotten about it, even though he himself had helped the Steward of Keys arrange with a representative of the Jaldeans for the Stone’s arrival. One of the small rooms behind the throne had been designated as the artifact’s resting place, though as yet no changes had been made.
But it had been Lok-iKol who had asked for these arrangements, not Tek-aKet. He risked a glance over his shoulder at the Tarkin. What did Tek-aKet know about this? How did he know?
It wasn’t until after the evening meal that Telian-Han decided he would, after all, speak to someone about what he’d overheard.
Mar looked up from her book when Rab-iRab Culebro led a younger, male page into the receiving room of the Tarkina’s suite. She and Rab had become friends over the last few days, finding that they had oddly much in common, seeing that their backgrounds were so distinct. Rab was from the Tarkin’s own House, and had grown up in a country Household, riding and roughhousing with her three older brothers, living the life that Mar had lost when the sickness had taken her parents. There was no snobbery about her, however, and Rab had been indignant when Mar had told her of the reception she’d had in House Tenebro.
“One of those Tenebro girls came to be a lady page with us last year,” Rab had said. “Zelianora Tarkina gave her a three-month trial before sending her home. She won’t tolerate any of that type here.” Rab had welcomed her Tarkina back with laughter, and not a few tears, and had embraced Mar willingly, all the more so as her fellow senior page had left to be married some few weeks before the night of terror.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that Rab had been much impressed by Mar’s adventures. “It reminds me of the Tale of Evanian the Carver,” she’d said. “I hope your life has every bit as good an ending.”
It was the same excited but serious look that Rab-iRab was wearing now.
“Mar,” she said, barely waiting for the door to close behind them. “Is the Tarkina still asleep?”
Zelianora had come back from the audience in the throne room exhausted, her emotional resources worn to thinness by all that had happened in the last half moon. Now that she was finally enjoying a deep and satisfying sleep, Mar was reluctant to wake her, and said so.
“This is Telian-Han,” Rab said, indicating the younger boy. “He’s one of the Tarkin’s pages.”
Mar smiled at the boy and he smiled back, though the frown that drew down the corners of his eyes did not go away. “Can your message wait until the Tarkina awakens?”
“It’s not a message, Lady Mar,” the boy said, clearing his throat as his voice croaked. “It’s something that happened in the throne room this afternoon. Something that worried me.”
“It won’t seem like much,” Rab said. “But it made me think of something you’d told me in your adventures. How the Wolfshead said that a scout’s report should include everything, even the details that don’t seem important because you can’t tell what’s important until you have all the details.”
Mar looked from one young face to another. The boy was definitely frightened, and desperately hiding it. Rab’s flushed cheeks showed her excitement, but her eyes were steady and serious. These two lived here with Lok-iKol, Mar reminded herself. And with whatever Lok had become. They’d been having their own adventures.
“Tell me,” she said. “Maybe together we can decide what to do.”
Mar could tell from the practiced way he told the story that Tel had given this a great deal of thought. What she couldn’t see was why the boy was so frightened.
“The Mesticha Stone is an important artifact,” she said. “And it would take time to prepare a Dedication Ceremony in any case, so why not wait for it?”
“It was the way he said it,” Tel said. “It… I’d heard him, the other one, say it just about exactly the same way. The same tone in his voice, the same words. Even the part about ‘appeasing the Jaldean faction.’ Tek-aKet Tarkin never cared about appeasing Jaldeans,” the boy said, his lip curling. “And even less so now, from what we’ve been told. It was as if I was hearing Lok-iKol speaking with the Tarkin’s voice.”
Lok-iKol or something else. Mar fought to keep the sudden surge of fear from her face.
“What color are the Tarkin’s eyes,” she asked.
“Blue,” said both pages in unison.
“And are they still blue? They don’t seem green?”
The two pages looked at one another, looked back at Mar and shook their heads, confusion evident on their faces.
Mar was not reassured. “I don’t think we’ll go to the Tarkina with this,” she said finally. “Not quite yet anyway.” Gun had gone to the Library, and might not return tonight if he found something useful among the books and scrolls. That left only one person she could take this to. Mar rose to her feet and set down the book she’d been reading. “Let’s find Dhulyn Wolfshead.”
Dhulyn Wolfshead had turned the corner from the outer courtyard into the passage that led to the rooms she and Parno had been given close to the Tarkina’s suite when she heard the unmistakable footsteps of her Partner behind her.
“I thought you were there for the rest of the day, challenging all comers,” she said as he caught up with her.
His pipes bleated a mournful note as he tucked them closer under his elbow, freeing his other arm to slip around her waist as they continued down the corridor.
“Pah,” he snorted, a feigned disgust wrinkling his lips. “As if there’s any contest when the Tarkin’s own Chanter gets involved. The woman does nothing all day but play. Small wonder she can best the rest of us.”
“There, there, my soul,” Dhulyn said, grinning. “There’s plenty you can do better than she.”
“As I hope to be proving to you in a few minutes,” he said, squeezing her closer and brushing his lips against her cheek. Dhulyn hugged him closely in turn, sighing as the muscles in her neck and shoulders relaxed.
“How long do you think we’ll stay,” she asked him.
“Well, at least let’s get paid,” he said. “Or do you find you simply can’t take the luxury of fires, feather beds, and regular baths a moment longer?”
Dhulyn smiled at the undercurrent of laughter in his voice. “It isn’t that,” she said. “And you know it.”
Parno nodded without speaking, and held his tongue until they were at the door of their rooms. “We must stay and keep watch, in case there’s reason. So you told me this morning, and I agreed. But there’s something we should do,” he said, “so as to be ready when the time for leaving comes.”
“I believe we did that, too, this afternoon,” she said, trying to make him laugh, “and unless I’m mistaken, we’re about to do it again.”
“Never you fear,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. “We’ll never go short, not so long as we’re both alive, and I, at least, have breath enough for my pipes. But there is a place here where a Brother of ours fell. Let us visit it while we have the chance.”
Dhulyn pressed her lips tightly together. “You are right, my heart. Bring your pipes, and I will fetch my sword.”
Parno patted the bed with his free hand. “I didn’t mean we should go right now.”
This time Dhulyn laughed out loud. “Oh, yes, you did.”
Dhulyn set the oil lamp down and crouched to touch the dark stain on the flagstones deep beneath the oldest tower of the Carnelian Dome. To her left was the Onyx Walk, to the right the long corridor stretching down to the old summer kitchen. She frowned and straightened once more, touching a similar dark stain on the wall. Her brow cleared. “This one,” she said.
“Died on his feet,” Parno said. “Good lad,”
“So may we all,” Dhulyn said, leaning her shoulder against the wall to one side of the bloodstain. “Tell me,” she said, beginning the ritual, “how did you first know our Brother Hernyn Greystone the Shield?”
Parno made himself comfortable against the wall on the other side of the stain. “I knew him when he was only Hernyn Greystone,” Parno began. “And he was a sorry sight when I first laid eyes on him, let me tell you…”
The exchange of story and anecdote that made up the Mercenary’s Last Farewell did not take very long, even though Dhulyn and Parno tried to remember everything they had seen Hernyn say or do.
“We stand now where our Brother stood at the last,” Dhulyn said finally. “And we say farewell to Hernyn Greystone the Shield, who gave his life for ours. Farewell, Hernyn, we stood together in Battle, and we will stand together again in Death.”
“In Battle and in Death,” Parno said, lifting his pipes into position, and fitting the chanter to his lips. The melody that he played then was not traditional, but one of his own making, and Dhulyn thought that if he had played it in the guardroom, he might have beaten even the Tarkin’s piper, in spite of all her practice.
When the final notes died away, they stood a moment or two longer in respect for the music, and their fallen Brother, before Dhulyn gave the bloodstained wall a final salute, touching her fingertips to the bloodstain, and then to her own forehead. Holding hands like children, they retraced their steps to the upper floors.
They had not yet reached the first staircase when Dhulyn hesitated between one step and the next, holding Parno back with a tug on his hand. He caught her eye, and nodded; he’d heard it, too.
“That was not the last dying away of the pipes’ music,” he whispered. “There’s no echo so long as that.”
“Speak again,” Dhulyn called, her voice pitched carefully so as not to echo too much in the deserted stone passages. “Speak that we may find you. Do you need our help?”
Again there came the low moaning that had first caught at Dhulyn’s ears. There was, indeed, something of the mournful notes of the pipes in the sound.
“This way,” Parno said, as he turned to go back the way they came. They were not far on the other side of the narrower passage that led to the old kitchens when they found a series of rooms, roughly the size appropriate for storage, the bolts on the outside of the doors showing evidence of what had been stored there. The man making the sound was in the third room.
He cowered away from them, pushing himself with his feet into the corner of the cell and covering his eyes against the brightness of the lamplight. It took a few minutes, along with some gentle words, for his eyes to adjust enough to allow Dhulyn to coax his hands away from his face.
“He hasn’t been here long,” Parno said, joining her after a quick look into a pail in the far corner of the cell. “But I’d say no one’s been near him in a few days.”
Dhulyn nodded, pulling her small emergency flask of water out of her belt pouch and holding it to the man’s lips.
“Can you speak, Grandfather,” she said as gently as she could.
The prisoner worked his lips, licking at them and swallowing. “Mercenary,” was the word that finally found its way out of his mouth.
“That’s right, sir,” Parno said, squatting down next to the old man. “Can you tell us who you are?”
Suddenly the old man grabbed Dhulyn by the front of her vest, his gnarled fingers tangling in the bits of lace and ribbons. “Did you see him? Has he found you?”
“Who would that be, sir?” Parno said.
“The Sleeping God,” the old man said, subsiding once more into his corner, one hand still clutching Dhulyn’s vest.
They became aware that the torn and stained robes the old man was wearing had once been the dark brown of a Jaldean priest. Their eyes met over the prisoner’s head.
“You’ve seen the Sleeping God?” Dhulyn asked, just as Parno said, “Does he have green eyes?”
“I thought he was, do you see? I thought he was. I thought I was helping him. Helping him to awaken because his time had come.” The old man subsided. “I thought he was the God. At first. I thought I was touched by the God.”
“Who are you?”
“Beslyn-Tor.” He looked around, his eyes clearing. “Have I been sick? This is not my hermitage.”
“Is he here now? The Sleeping God?”
“No, no, why don’t you listen? I tried to tell everyone, but no one listened. I thought he was the God. I thought he was. I’d been collecting relics, you see. I found five, do you see, that’s one more than Arcosa Shrine and the people will come to us, to our shrine, to Monachil. He spoke, and I thought it was the God.” The old man repeated the phrase several times before putting his dirty index finger, with its cracked nail, to his lips, tapping them in the “shhh” sign, all the while his head trembling as if he had the palsy. “But no,” he said finally, the words a mere whisper. “But no.” He caught at Dhulyn again. “I welcomed him. I rejoiced!” He shook his head again, but this time like a man who just can’t believe he could have been that stupid. “But he isn’t the God. He fears the God. He fears the God, do you see?” He collapsed backward. “And then he left me.”
“Where did he go?”
“To Lok-iKol. To Lok-iKol. Like this.” And here the old man took Dhulyn’s face tenderly in his hands, and focused his eyes on hers. “Like this. That’s how it’s done.”
It took all of Dhulyn’s force of will to take the old man’s hands off her face gently, without breaking his wrists.
“That’s how he does it, is it?” she asked.
The old man nodded again. “That’s how. But he always came back. Before. He always came back. It’s hard to be alone. Hard now.” His eyes came abruptly into focus. “You be careful, young woman. He looks for a Mercenary. You be very careful.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t let him touch you, my daughter. He looks for a Mercenary. Be careful.”
The focus faded once again from his eyes and the hand that clutched at Dhulyn’s vest relaxed. She felt for and found a pulse under his jaw, but it was fitful. She glanced up at Parno, found him grim-faced.
“Can you carry him?” she said. “I don’t think he’ll last long anyway, but we can’t leave him here.”
“Take my pipes,” Parno said. “Dhulyn,” he added as she straightened to her feet and held out her hands for the instrument. “Do we understand him to mean…?”
“I think we must,” Dhulyn said, tucking the pipes under her left arm and picking up the lantern. “From what he’s said, I think it means the Tarkin.”
“Who should we tell?”
“That’s a good question.” Alkoryn was dead, she thought. And as little as she liked it, that might very well make her Senior Brother in Gotterang.
They left Beslyn-Tor to be made as comfortable as possible in the guards’ infirmary room before looking for the Tarkina. They were just entering the corridor that led to Zelianora’s room when they heard three people behind them.
“Dhulyn Wolfshead? Lionsmane?” came a tentative but familiar voice. As she turned, Dhulyn did not trouble to suppress a sigh that was so short as to be almost a snort of annoyance. Mar was part of the Tarkina’s household now; what could she possibly want from Dhulyn?
She raised her eyebrows as she turned and recognized the youngsters with Mar. One she knew as Rab-iRab, senior lady page to Zelianora Tarkina. Younger than Mar, but tall for her age, and with an air of having very recently learned how serious the world can be. The other was a page of the Tarkin’s whom Dhulyn had now seen several times without learning his name. Dhulyn felt a heavy weight settle into her stomach. What would bring pages from the Tarkin’s household looking for Mercenaries? She was very afraid that she knew.
“Wolfshead and Lionsmane,” Mar said. Dhulyn knew that look-half fear, half resolution-she’d seen it in Mar’s face in the mountains. “May we speak with you in private?”
“We’ve business of our own to attend to, Lady Mar,” Parno said. “Can this wait?”
Mar exchanged looks with the two pages. The young boy spoke up. “It’s about the Tarkin,” he said, eyes glittering.
“You’re his page, aren’t you?” Dhulyn asked him. “You know our names, what is yours?”
“I am Telian-Han, son of Debrion-Han of Culebro Holding.” The boy had to clear his throat halfway through, as his voice threatened to crack.
“You knew the usurper, Lok-iKol Tenebro? You were here?”
The boy nodded. “We both were.”
“And you have something to tell us?”
Again the nod.
Parno raised his hand to his face, placing the tips of his index and middle fingers on his lips. Dhulyn saw and silently agreed. She wasn’t the only one with a sense of disaster.
“Come with us,” she said to the youngsters.